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.