Murder on the Glasgow/Edinburgh Express

The shriek of the train’s whistle woke me from a brief slumber and I smiled at how easy it was to snooze in the comfort of a first class carriage. I hadn’t been napping for long and took a look out of the window to work out where we might be but it was night and the fields and hedgerows that passed were but a dark blur. Then in the reflection of the window I noticed someone sitting opposite me, a few seats away; a black eyed gentleman and he was looking intently in my direction. I turned from the window and with a start realised that he was staring right at me. I caught his eye and he turned away but as he did, I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye and another man, much like the first was now staring at me. I turned and looked straight at him but he averted his gaze only for me to notice that as he did, the first man turned and looked back at me. This was as ridiculous as it was unsettling as I looked from one to the other only for them to take it in turns to stare at me with those same dead, black eyes. I reluctantly gave up the comfort of first class and left the carriage to get away from these curious creatures and sat one carriage away and settled back and thought about boys in leather shorts but I must have dozed off again and when I awoke, there sitting in front of me again were the same two men.


I got up immediately this time and moved to the next carriage along but I had barely taken my seat when one of them sat in front of me and as I goggled at him, his friend sat down to my right, both staring expressionless, into my eyes. They were too close for comfort now and mindful of Souness’s warning, I sprang up and trotted down the aisle towards the next carriage. I looked behind me and there they were, following me, still staring, still emotionless. This was becoming serious, these men looked like they hated me and were sure to cause me harm if they were to find me alone but thankfully I was on a busy train although I noticed with growing alarm that the more I fled from carriage to carriage, the less busy they became until with a fright I noticed I was in the buffet carriage and the buffet was closed, the carriage empty. I turned to see if I had time to get out of there but those two monsters were right behind me and just as I felt absolute panic shiver down my spine and turn my legs to jelly, two men in moustaches and dressed in bed sheets jumped out from behind the buffet at me and held me against the window. As one of them held a curved blade to my throat and came in close to me to whisper
‘We’re the Scottish TUC, prepare to die,’ I could smell his breath.
‘Ugh, garlic,’ I gasped.
‘Ugh, mouldering cabbage and dog piss’ he replied but before he could do anything with his dagger a hand appeared from behind his head, grabbed his moustache and pulled him screaming away from me. It was Graeme Souness and he had the other one too, also by the moustache.
‘I don’t like your face furniture boys and surely there are other ways to support Palestinians without assaulting people who disagree with you?’ and he knocked their heads together until they collapsed in a heap in the corridor, Souness watching them fall, waiting till he was sure they wouldn’t get back up and then raising his head and winking at me. I am sure he was about to say ‘see you loser’ but he didn’t get the chance as two young men I recognised as two of the more excitable of the Pacific Quay CSC came up behind him and reigned blows down on his head with small iron bars. Souness’s reaction was instant and fast; he grabbed one of his assailants by the side of the head and pushed it into the wall then brought it back across his front and smashed the man’s face into the window, smearing snot and blood across the glass and sending a hair line crack into the corner. Souness was slowing though as all the while he was doing this, the second BBC bhoy was still bringing his cosh down on the old Ranger’s head until eventually he could hold on no more and collapsed to the floor and lay motionless on top of the other three men.

Souness’s assailant giggled as he looked down at his victim.
‘That was for 2-0 against Celtic in 1986,’ he sneered.
‘But you weren’t even born then’ I shrieked at him, appalled at the violence which yet again compromised everything I believed about the cuddly nature of Celtic fans.
‘No I wasn’t but my dad told me about it, we’re Celtic supporters Spiers, we bear grudges. Forever,’ he said as he dropped the iron bar and pulled a steak knife from his inside pocket and stepped over the bodies towards me. I turned to flee and nearly fainted from fright as there at the other end of the carriage were the two dead eyed men standing in the shadows, still as mist in a graveyard and staring straight at me with their evil black eyes. I sobbed and looked over my shoulder as the BBC bhoy approached, a vicious smile on his face, whispering
‘Nobody gets to listen to Professor Steve Bruce if BBC Scotland has anything to do with it, now come here and accept your fate Stinkerbell.’
In front of me lay pain, disfigurement and possibly death, behind me lay madness. I was stuck, with nothing left to say and nowhere to run. Souness on the floor bleeding from the ear couldn’t save me now. I fell to my knees and began to cry like a girl when suddenly the train entered a tunnel, its whistle blowing as shrill as Paul McBride when things aren’t going his way. The train lights flickered and then I heard a plink and they went out and I gasped as the BBC Scotland assassin stopped right in front of me, his arm raised about to bring his knife down on my head. He stood still, face frozen and there was a popping sound before blood shot from his neck, arterial spray swishing across my face and onto the window. He looked puzzled for a moment then brought his hand up to his neck and pulled something from the hole that had appeared there, his life squirting from him until eventually his legs buckled and he slumped to the ground in a puddle of his own gore. With his last breath he reached out his hand and opened his bloody clenched fist and wriggling in his palm was a blood clotted cricket.

After all that it didn’t dawn on me to look behind me for the dead eyed men but when I eventually realised I’d forgotten about them and looked around in panic, they had gone. The train whistle sounded again and something bright outside caught my attention. I looked out the blood caked window and saw Edinburgh Castle shining bright against the black sky, the neon lights and gory window affected to make it glow an ominous orange colour as I looked around the charnel house in which I stood and wondered how on earth I was going to get back to the west end from here.