The Sound of Tables Turning

Warning lights flashed and sirens sounded throughout the BBC Scotland headquarters at Pacific Quay giving me quite a start. I had broken in there in the middle of the night in an effort to locate the painting where once before I’d noticed a light going on and figured that now I needed to locate the mysterious Jorg Albertz, this was the place for me. Unfortunately for me, I chose a night when news began to break of UEFA investigating Celtic fans over discriminatory chanting hence the sirens summoning the Pacific Quay CSC from their beds in order to bury the news.

I was hiding under a table as the skeleton staff began the fire fight and at last one of them answered the Parkhead hotline which had been ringing off the desk in the centre of the room. It was Lawwell and I could hear his screams from under the table.
‘If there’s even one sniff of this story on the BBC news then not only will you never have a seat at Parkhead again, I’ll flay your fucking hides. Christ, the amount of work I’ve put in over the year to head off any poppy scandal and now this happens. Get that stupid looking cunt McLaughlin over here now; I don’t care what time it is!’
‘What am I supposed to do?’ quivered the poor part timer who’d answered the phone, I’m not even a Celtic fan, I’m not qualified for this…’ but before he could continue, security turned up, truncheoned him to the ground and dragged him off.
‘Daft prick,’ said his colleague. ‘I told him never to mention that. Although how he sneaked through the employment process without them finding out, I don’t know. I suppose anyone would think a guy with a name like Declan O’Flaherty would be one of us, eh?’ and he left the room giving me a chance to get out from under the table, nab the painting and flee the building in all the confusion. On the way out I passed the massed ranks of a panicked Young Bhoys of the BBC, still out their nuts, as they queued at the security doors to get in, shovels sticking out their backpacks in preparation for burying another Celtic bad news story.

Painting under my arm and job done, I felt rather smug with myself as I whistled across the bridge heading back to the west end and then my own mobile phone started to ring – was this Lawwell summoning me? No, it was Tom Devine. This was puzzling as Devine wasn’t known to be conscious around these hours, the buckets of port having taken their toll usually around 2am.

‘You’re back in, Spiers,’ grunted Devine.
‘Not that I’m not pleased to hear that,’ I replied snootily, ‘but what happened to the golden boy, Gerry Hassan?’
‘Poor Gerry. He bumped into someone at the bar shortly after you left. Spilled the man’s martini and got shot on the leg for his troubles.’
‘It was Souness, wasn’t it?’
‘Of course it was, excuse me Spiers. Not so fast you silly slut… That’s better. Now, Spiers, back to you.’
‘What was going on there?’ I asked, wondering about the interruption.
‘Oh I’ve got Joan McAlpine here – left a bit Joan, aaaaaah…’
‘Listen Tom, call me back later when you’re not being pleasured, there’s a good man,’ and I hung up on him. Things were looking up then. Now all I had to do was get into the office and ensure nothing of the UEFA investigation got into the Times and I could look forward to a quiet weekend off.

Of course there’s no such thing as a quiet weekend off when Peter Lawwell is on the war path.