Made in America

The past few weeks have been a blur since Donald Findlay tricked me into meeting Mo Johnston again. In spite of Tom Devine’s insistence that it was all an elaborate con, I know what I witnessed at St. Mirin’s Cathedral that night and no amount of Celtic spin can make me change my mind or say otherwise. BBC Scotland employs vampires who are sucking dry the husk that is Scottish football and that’s that and if that makes me sound like an idiot who doesn’t deserve to work for the Times then so be it, let them try to sack me, they wouldn’t dare.

Jorg Albertz explained to me before we started that being in the vicinity of so much magik would affect my perceptions of time and reality. He said this before deciphering the runes from the island where we were cast up after the awful crash of the Celtic AGM.

‘The first line says, ‘know the law well because it is not true’. Well that’s very interesting, can be interpreted in a number of ways, don’t you agree?’ asked Albertz. Mo Johnston nodded, his golden face radiating beauty and quite putting me off our task.
‘On one hand,’ piped up Donald Findlay. ‘It could mean we must know the forthcoming legislation well as it might be dangerously illiberal and threaten freedom of speech.’
‘No might about it, it is dangerous,’ interrupted Souness. ‘I insist that you allow me to let loose the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos and we’ll soon put Salmond back in his place. In fact, I’ll bring him to you in a cage.’
Findlay smirked, ‘Again Graeme, this is not the time for running off half cocked with a knife between your teeth, the runes could mean something else entirely. Know the law well… Know the law well. Know the Lawwell? Know the Lawwell! If anything isn’t true it’s that bastard! Could these wise and ancient magi have been warning us about Lawwell, the beast who would terrorise their island before returning to Scotland to continue terrorising the Scottish media?’
‘If this is true then we must get to Stewart Regan and warn him what he’s dealing with,’ exhorted Albertz.
‘Are you joking? You think Regan didn’t know exactly who he was climbing into bed with when Lawwell offered him the job at the SFA?’ growled Souness.
‘Of course I’m joking, squire. Anything to lighten the mood, it’s all getting a bit morbid around here and for good reason, I sense impending doom for one of our little band of brothers and if all these years of arsing about with demonology, witchcraft and magik has meant anything, it means my sixth sense is never wrong.’

I bridled at this, feeling very uncomfortable looking around the room at all these old warriors and me sitting with them, never been in a fight in my life. If someone here is facing destruction, it sure as damnation’s not going to one of these ruffians which left me. I looked up and noted that Mo Johnston was gazing down at me, his blue eyes glowing. I blushed and looked away and then everything went hazy and the next thing I remember I was in a toboggan with Souness, racing down a hillside, gunshots sounding from behind, snow kicking up all around as Phil Tartaglia’s men pursued us.

Everything went blank again and the next thing I remember is standing with Souness, looking down at a body bleeding out into the snow, awful crimson wings of gore spreading from behind someone I recognised as one of Lawwell’s goons. A little puff of smoke played around my nose and I glanced at the steaming silencer on the end of Souness’s pistol; it intrigued me, this man’s end.
‘Do you think he felt any pain, knew he was finished?’ I asked.
‘He knew nothing, one minute he’s aiming at Ally McCoist’s head, the next, it goes black then there’s nothing. There’s no afterlife, Spiers, no heaven. Death isn’t a door from this life to the next, it’s just death. Darkness forever and the sooner you religious types begin to understand that then perhaps we’ll have less trouble from extremists like Lawwell and his fellow travellers. We’re all the same you know, pieces of meat trying to get through life; the days of attributing God’s works to anything we don’t understand are long gone and anyway, I’ve never met anything I didn’t understand that couldn’t be explained by a double tap from a Walther PPK.’
Well that cheered me up no end and that’s where my memory of the snow ends. My recollections by now are like old film stock flickering through a dusty projector: lucidity followed by gaps and jumps.

‘This isn’t a Catholic problem; it’s a Celtic supporting Catholic problem,’ said Findlay, filling his pipe and tugging at his whiskers. ‘Most Catholics don’t give a damn about the IRA but the majority of Celtic supporters do as they glorify them in song every week as they follow their team and it’s hardly the minority of a small group of one particular supporters’ organisation as every Celtic Minded politician, journalist, or academics with Lawwell’s pistol pointed at his head is claiming. No, it’s most of the crowd as any of these fools could hear if they’d stop singing Boys of the Old Brigade long enough to listen.’

Do you know what I’d love to see? What would please me now more than anything, even Rangers winning four in a row? For one, just one eminent Roman Catholic to come out in public and say that they’ve got a bit carried away, that they’re not being persecuted and that everyone should calm down. I think I’ll settle for four in a row though as there’s no way any of them will speak out against this offensive tribal posturing.’
There was no stopping him now, his pipe was ablaze and he puffed furiously as he considered what I’d told him of Lawwell’s latest mischief.

‘Unlike other years when I’d rather forget these, my declining days and thus ignore my birthdays, next year I’m rather looking forward to it what with Celtic playing at home on St. Patrick’s Day especially after they came out and lambasted Rangers for cynically ‘abusing’ St. Andrew’s Day for their own purposes. I’m sure I’m not the only one filing away Lawwell’s thinly veiled diatribe until next March,’ and he got to his feet and kicked the coal scuttle. 

Then I felt dizzy and when I came to I was in the office of the editor of the Times and I had a pistol in my hand. How it got there I don’t know, what I was doing, I also can’t recall but there was one thing in my mind and that was to take out Magnus Linklater and for some reason, scratching away at the back of my mind was the idea that it was him or me. Wobbly old Magnus looked at me with sadness and rose from his desk. ‘I’m sorry Graham,’ he said and