Xenomorphosis Part Five

Souness’s van lay on its side, smoke belching from the engine, one useless wheel still spinning. Lawwell’s men had removed Joan McAlpine from the rear and bundled her into their Range Rover along with the bound and hooded bodies of Colin West and Robert Fleck. Souness was nowhere to be seen and Donald Findlay was picking himself up in the middle of the expressway where he’d been tossed when the van crashed; he looked dazed but quickly composed himself as the Celtic goon approached him with the hood and wrist-ties.
‘Come on auld yin, don’t make this worse for yourself,’ said Lawwell’s man.
‘By jove,’ muttered Findlay, steadying himself on his cane before raising it and pointing it at his would be assailant who laughed at the sight of an old man brandishing a walking stick.
‘Judging from your amusement, you’ve never heard of a Von Herder cane?’ smiled Findlay. ‘Well bully for you,’ and there was a spark from the end of the cane and a small cracking sound as the goon’s knees buckled and he collapsed. I was sitting in my idling Mini wondering what to do and had turned to see what Lawwell’s reaction would be to Findlay shooting his man with a cane and when I turned back towards Findlay, he was gone. Lawwell ignored this development, content to have Joan McAlpine back and, his car loaded now, he drove off and as he did I noticed the dark figure of Graeme Souness clinging to the roof, knife between his teeth, moustache blowing in the wind.

I briefly considered following them but decided against it, choosing instead to drive straight to my flat off Byres Road and type up an exclusive story of how Donald Findlay viciously assaulted a helpless Celtic fan and try to punt it to one of the papers. When I got back to the flat though I found it had been broken into and that Alex Mosson had nicked my laptop. There was nothing for it then but to toodle over to Parkhead and see what Lawwell was going to do with Joan McAlpine. If I’d known then the danger I’d be getting myself into then I’d have just bought a new laptop and left well alone but how was I to know what fresh madness Lawwell had in mind for me?