The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

There were more zombies than usual hanging around George Square as I approached Queen Street station. I was just beginning to wonder if the tunnel between the City Chambers and Parkhead had been opened and its denizens allowed to flood the city when I realised it was some Hollywood blockbuster being filmed. I wondered if Celtic knew there were stars in town so they could quickly invite them along to watch a game and wrap some scarves around them for the Daily Record photographers although they’d better be careful not to wrap one around one of the walking dead as who’d notice the difference between the PR stunt and one of the usual Gallowgate tramps? I shouldn’t mock them though, they’re the only ones reading any of my work these days, on Twitter because no one reads the Times anymore. God’s truth, I don’t even write for it anymore; no, the janny does that for me, giving me more time to crusade against the greatest evil facing Scottish society in centuries: Rangers. Why, did you think I was going to say something else?

I paid the cabbie and got out, turning up the collar of my corduroy coat and looking up at the sky. It was only seven in the evening and it was already dark – what happened to the summer? This was bad news for anyone printing lies about Rangers which after all, is just about everybody, as the mysterious figure attacking us whom we’d named Spring Heeled Jack only attacks in the dark. The few first-hand sightings of Spring Heeled Jack had reported that even when his face came out of the darkness, it still seemed to be shrouded in shadows. I thought about this as I stood in the gloom and I shivered then climbed the steps into the station where I’d last been the night Graeme Souness drove me through it in a Mini Cooper to get away from Lawwell’s Stasi.
‘Hello loser,’ said a voice from behind a ticket machine – it was Souness!
‘You know, I was just thinking about you there,’ I exclaimed.
‘I don’t want to know about your perverted thoughts you dolt… What, was I wearing a basque? No? Never mind. I need a word Spiers, follow me.’
So I followed him to a coffee shop where we sat and hunched over a table conspiratorially as he told me to watch myself.
‘You do realise that the Scottish media will never allow you to speak to Professor Bruce, don’t you?’
I didn’t. He continued,
‘And even if you did get past them, you’ll have Kearney’s organisation doing everything in their power to shut you up.’
‘Who, the Catholic church?’ I goggled.
‘And not only them, Lawwell and all his agents will be on your case too. It’s a dangerous game, Spiers and I don’t think you’re suited to play it. Have you thought about Reich Chancellor Salmond and his SA over at Holyrood? Do you seriously think they won’t be keeping an eye on what you’re up to? The STUC are still active in this country too, they’ll have the Palestinians tailing you. You know what Spiers, just go home and leave this to the big boys; this lot have silenced Bruce for too long now, they won’t allow any of his research and fact based findings on sectarianism in Scotland reach the public domain and ruin their little party. They’re building their own Celtic Minded Utopia and one more body of a talentless journalist among the ruins of Enlightened Scotland won’t matter to them.’

I didn’t take his advice and at half past the hour I was sitting in the first class carriage as the whistles sounded and the Edinburgh express toiled slowly from the platform and as we exited the first tunnel and into the night, I heard a thump on the roof of the train but thought nothing of it.

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor

The invitation came from a most unlikely source: Donald Findlay. Findlay had been keeping a low profile ever since Lawwell, tired of his interfering in many of his lunatic schemes, had the Green Brigade send him a dangerous package in the post. When I arrived at his residence in Newlands there was no sign of nerves though and he seemed his usual jovial self, sitting in his favourite chair by the fireplace, inspecting the tobacco from the Persian slipper and throwing it absent mindedly into the flames instead of packing the empty pipe he was sucking.
'Trying to give it up,' he said.
'Smoking? That's surprising,' I ventured.
'No no Spiers, playing cat and mouse with Peter Lawwell. Smoking's harmless in comparison.'
'Yes, I heard you received something in the post.'
'A bloody knife! A knife, y'hear?' He seemed angry at the thought of it, then continued.
'The retard Lennon gets bombs and I get a bloody knife? Well, when I say bombs of course I mean bundles of rubbish designed to look like bombs, all this 'viable device' nonsense was just that, spouted by Strathclyde Police to further whatever agenda they were pursuing at the time. I suppose when I think about it, a knife could do me more damage than the detritus Lennon and his fellow comedy Catholics received; they'd have been hurt more had they received a nice paper cut off the envelopes. So I suppose I shouldn't be too upset that they didn't use any imagination or go to any great effort when it came to threatening me. Perhaps Lawwell's losing his touch?'
He relaxed in his chair after those short moments of animation and then sighed and tossed me a package.
'What's this?' I asked and he motioned for me to open it, raising one eyebrow as if to tell me to behave and not be afraid of it being a knife or a bomb. It was a return ticket, first class no less, to Edinburgh.
'And why do I want to go to Edinburgh?' I asked.
'You don't,' he said. 'But you have to. There's a chap there I'd like you to meet and believe me when I say this Spiers, it'll do you a world of good to speak to this fellow. There is evil abroad once again in this country. The voices of reason are being drowned out by the shrill screeching of those whose agenda we thought we understood but now I'm not so sure. You fancy living in a police state, Spiers? Led by a fundamentalist religion with the emphasis on mentalist?'
'Well, I don't know...' I began but he interrupted.
'These are dangerous times laddie, it's time for you to hear the truth. Oh, I know we've pointed you in this direction before and you still prattle on like some useful idiot Baptist with a Celtic scarf but I have a feeling this chap might just convince you that your enemy is not Rangers.'
'What's his name?'
'Professor Bruce,' he replied and said no more, leaning towards the fire to light his pipe as I was ushered out and plonked in a hansom cab which took me to Queen Street.
And so it began.

Magwitch

Peter Lawwell stalked the corridors of the SFA as if daring anyone to ask him what he was doing there. Behind him lay the horse-whipped bodies of those who had.
‘Where the fuck is Regan?’ he demanded, knocking over busts and throwing pictures from walls.
'All I ask is that teams of tree wrestling farmhands know their place but no, he couldn’t even guarantee me that’ and he booted open a door and glared into the empty office. He turned and saw me trying to hide behind a fire extinguisher.
‘Spiers!’ he roared and my arse dissolved as I realised I’d wandered in here on the wrong night. I should have known better than to be out in the open after Rangers had gone top of the league courtesy of a Celtic home defeat. I was just lucky he wasn’t carrying any heavy armaments.
Minutes later he’d located Regan and had both of us tied to a Hampden goalpost and was thrashing us with a corner flag in such a blind rage I’d never seen before even in this lazy eyed psycho. As the darkness and welcome unconsciousness approached, reality began to merge with dreams and I was cast back to my childhood and a mist shrouded graveyard.

Even as a young lad I found it thrilling to lurk in dark places at night where I might meet handsome strangers for a fumble but a lonely island cemetery amidst the sea hugged marshes was never as busy as Kelvin Way on a Thursday night. So it was with a start that I was taken unawares by a hulking great brute who leaped on me from behind a gravestone. He wrapped a chain around my neck and demanded that I bring him cake which if you think about it isn’t that far off what Stephen Purcell used to ask of me in those halcyon days before his downfall. Later that night I spirited a fairy cake from the family home and took it to this frightening yet vulnerable stranger who gobbled it down with nary a thank you and then felt my arse and as I squeaked he sent me off to bring him back a file for his chains. As I struggled through the marshes again that night I could hear the sound of cannon from the prison ship off shore indicating an escape – could this be my charming rough trade skulking amongst the stones? I didn’t have to wait long for an answer as the Redcoats were ahead of me and had captured him and my longed for night of passion dissipated in front of my youthful eyes.
‘I’ll never forget what you did for me boy’ whispered Magnus Linklater out of earshot of his captors as he was led away and he never did.

I came to on the centre spot and Lawwell was gone, Stewart Regan standing above me. He was naked, bloody and weeping.
‘What have I done, Spiers’ he cried? ‘What have I let into the SFA?’
‘Don’t make me laugh, Regan’ I sneered. ‘You’ve always known what he’s like.’
‘No. No, I thought I knew. I envy you, Spiers. I really do. You were lucky enough to pass out and not hear his new plans for this season. I wish to God I’d never heard’ and he broke down sobbing, gathering up the Hampden turf and rubbing it into his eyes. St. Johnstone have a lot to answer for I thought and wondered how I was going to get back to the west end from here.

City of Light

One thing the disastrous secret meeting at midnight taught the Scottish football journalists was that when you’re dealing with a creature that moves in the shadows, don’t sit in the darkness and complain when he comes to terrorise you. From that week on all the secret meetings were held in the middle of a park at three in the afternoon and only if it was a sunny day.


After a lot of soul searching everyone decided that it was Lawwell who got us into this mess so he should at least help get us out of it but when a volunteer was asked for to approach him with our request no one was brave enough to step forward. So Ronnie 'Crespo' Cully was forced to do it as it’s been noticed that Lawwell quickly tires of beating the sycophantic little squirt. Cully was dispatched to plead for Lawwell’s help just as news filtered through to us that the BBC had caved and apologised to Rangers for stitching up Ally McCoist, then we heard that Lawwell had thrashed Cully to within an inch of his life after he put four of his finest men on the case only for all of them to go missing one by one, dried cricket husks arriving at Parkhead and addressed to Lawwell every time one of his agents disappeared. Things were not going well for the Scottish football press and we weren’t taking it well. Having got used to the days of wine and roses when we could lay into Rangers without fear, it was difficult for many of us to adjust now that we realised that those days are not long.

Days turned into weeks and everything went quiet. Nobody reported any cricket based activity and the bhoys at the BBC began to think they could get back to normal and were preparing another editing-based outrage to perpetrate against Rangers but then even although McCoist’s team fell to Maribor, Celtic ruined the night by failing to turn up at Parkhead and another early European exit stared them in the face. The screams from Pacific Quay could be heard from the Alea Casino where I was spending an enjoyable few hours with the Osmonds, losing at roulette and drinking appletinis.
‘You’ve been quiet recently, Spiers’ said Donny as I put a fiver on red.
‘Black’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Well not quite Donny, my stuff is still appearing in the Times but nobody reads it anymore so it doesn’t really matter what I say, I can’t get everyone quite as worked up as I used to. Fiver on black.’
‘But what about Twitter?’ asked little Jimmy although he’s not really all that little anymore, weighing fourteen stone and sporting a beard.
‘Red’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Listen Jimmy, I’ve hardly got any friends left on that either as I’ve removed so many followers recently it’s not true. Every time someone asks me a challenging question regarding the establishment’s approach to Celtic fans’ sectarian singing I have to bump them as I have no sensible response. All I have left are swivel eyed Celtic fans themselves following me and half of them write in text speak so that I can’t understand a word they’re saying. Fiver on red.’
‘So no one’s reading anything you write these days?’ asked Marie.
‘Black’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Well, doddery old Magnus still reads it. And someone from Lawwell’s office too I suppose as he monitors everyone lest they stray off message. Fiver on black.’
‘I’ve always meant to ask you about Magnus Linklater, why on earth does he still employ you? You’re poison’ said Wayne with a little too much malice in his voice.
‘Red’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit!’ cried I and it was around this time that security asked me to leave for creeping out the other gamblers by speaking to myself which I didn’t understand and neither did the Osmonds who left with me but didn’t intervene as I was escorted out. Still, leaving early gave me the chance to tell my new friends all about why shaky old Magnus suffers me.

It all started a long time ago when I was but a boy…

City of Night

In the old days during the reign of the coward Murray, a European defeat at Ibrox would have been followed by bacchanalian scenes in republican bars throughout Glasgow as the Scottish media joined their Labour Party chums for a celebratory knees up and the only worries anyone had were who would host Peter Lawwell and his entourage since he liked to end the night with some casual murder of anyone he imagined had slighted him or Celtic in any way over the past few months. These days however, we have to step more carefully. Murray is gone and suddenly Rangers have teeth again. Oh they always had teeth, I know that only too well having been bitten on the arse too many times as a consequence of becoming involved against my will mostly but sometimes with my full cooperation, in most of Lawwell’s lunatic schemes. The difference now is that those teeth are visible to the public where in the past they were hidden as various people and groups plotted and planned on behalf of Rangers without letting Murray find out in case it interfered with his quest for a knighthood.
So now journalists have to look out not only for Lawwell, his Stasi and assorted grotesques all keen to terrorise and maim to keep the good name of Celtic out of the mud, but now also have to keep a keen eye open for Craig Whyte’s dogs of war, let loose at the end of last season and this is why after Rangers lost to Malmo, instead of laughing it up with the Green Brigade, every journalist was attending a secret meeting to discuss the latest worrying events.

I wasn’t invited for some reason. I’d quizzed Marjory Brianbanks as we like to call him down at Bennets, on why this was and he shrugged.
‘No one likes you Spiers. I suppose it could be that. Or just that the meeting will be in an enclosed space and we don’t like to have to breathe through our ears whenever you’re around. That’s the thing about B.O., sometimes your O leaves your B and gets right up our noses. No, when the sports journalists of Scotland get together in a confined room, the only stench we want around is that of stale whisky breath.’

So I had to find out the hard way and flirted with the Mail’s Celtic obsessed queen, Stephen McGowan who whined at me in that nasally ned way as I fumbled in his trousers getting him worked up with one hand while picking his pocket with the other, a trick I learned off Jack McConnell from his time as a pickpocket on the streets of Glasgow before the Labour Party got a hold of him, divested him of any inclination towards his old team Rangers and got him a seat at Parkhead from where he ruled Scotland for a number of years before eventually being binned as his useful idiocy ran out.
Armed with information stolen from McGowan I made my way to the location of the secret meeting, a ruined and abandoned Alexander Greek Thomson building which Glasgow City Council never think to preserve because ‘he wis a Protestant ‘n’ ‘at, know?’ The meeting wouldn’t start until it was dark according to McGowan’s note and I was reminded of Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter telling me there are no ghosts in the daylight, and of Stuart Cosgrove telling me he never went out as Bat-Cosgrove during the day; I thought of these oddballs from my past and it reminded me that Glasgow summers have only a few hours of proper darkness especially during hot spells like this one so when I sneaked into the Thomson ruins it was almost midnight and a full moon too by the looks of things as Jim Delahunt was being chained to the floor because he’d started to sprout hair on his face and grow claws.

It wasn’t easy getting in as Hugh Keevins and Tom English were manning the door so as I approached the candlelit entrance to the secret meeting I was thinking up excuses for being there uninvited I realised there was no need to worry as Keevins and English were having a hard enough time keeping out James Cook of BBC Scotland.
‘Look sonny, it’s because of you that we’re down here in the first place,’ snarled English.
‘Indeed,’ droned Keevins. If it hadn’t for your lot completely forgetting the rules and going after Ally McCoist then we wouldn’t be sneaking around in subterranean chambers at midnight in the first place so there’s no way you’re getting in – there’s no telling what misfortune you might bring with you. Spiers, what are you doing here?’
But before I could even make any excuses or plead to be let in I noticed English and Keevins looking at Cook in horror, I turned and gawped as a lump moved up Cook’s cheek – there was something under his skin! It stopped at his eye and as we all took a step back towards the door, little legs felt their way out of Cook’s eyelids and a cricket crawled out and fluttered off.
‘Jesus, what was that?’ exclaimed Cook, holding his head in his hands and gazing in incomprehension at us as more lumps moved around his face and then he began to choke, collapsing to the ground, retching as more crickets freed themselves from his eyes, flew out his ears and as he vomited, they came spewing out of his mouth too.

That was enough for us and my lack of an invitation didn’t matter anymore as we left Cook outside and fled behind the safety of the old oak door, Keevins slamming it shut and calling for help to hold it while he found a padlock and chain.
‘This is what comes of messing with the new Rangers under Whyte,’ shouted Keith Jackson at the top of the table as his fellow football hacks sat around and sweated. The underground meeting place was cool, a welcome relief from the heat of the sultry summer’s night outside but they were sweating nonetheless, from fear I reckoned as they’d just witnessed one of the more notorious members of the Pacific Quay CSC consumed by insects.
‘It seems we can no longer attack Rangers with impunity which leaves us in a difficult position,’ interrupted John Greechan. ‘On one hand we have Lawwell forcing us to bury Celtic bad news and encouraging us to lay into the Huns with threats of torture if we don’t comply with his every request and that was okay in the old days but times have changed and although we can’t be certain these crickets are the work of Rangers, it does seem odd that they affect anyone working against them.’
‘Well not quite,’ pondered Roddy Forsyth. ‘They’ve not affected Spiers yet and he’s the biggest pain in the arse for Rangers in this room.’
‘Not just for Rangers,’ muttered some wag at the back of the room and everyone laughed but the merriment was short lived as all the candles which were the only illumination in that room save for my beamer, dimmed as one and then went out leaving us in the dark, the only light peeking through the floorboards above us where the plaster had fallen from the ceiling. Everyone cried out and small comforting lights appeared through the room as people lit matches, lighters or pulled out their mobile phones.
‘Listen!’ shushed Keevins and everyone stopped babbling and listened as slow, heavy footsteps made their way across the floor above us. Dust fell from the ceiling as a dark figure passed, blocking out the peeping light and then it paused and what little light there was upstairs faded and then disappeared. Then there was a fluttering noise. First one and then two and then the whole room was full of crickets flying around until the sound of their wings was obliterated by the screams of sports journalists as they scrambled and clawed their way to the door to escape the horror inside.