The Fellowship

“There are eight Lawwells out there, who else is going to stop them?” asked Donald Findlay, addressing the curious assembly of a more disparate bunch of people you could ever expect to meet around a roaring fire.  The brandy was warming our stomachs and I got the feeling that Findlay was also trying to warm up my liver a little as he suspected that I was too much of a coward to take on the role he had planned for me. 

“Graeme, you cover the waterfront.  I want to know if there’s any movement from the Port Glasgow Fenian Navy.  Your codename will be Fountainhead, my own will be Highgate” said Findlay and there was a murmur of appreciation for the fact that we were all to be given manly codenames and Souness looked especially pleased at his as he stroked his moustache and lit up a cigar.

“Tom,” said Findlay to Tom Devine who was eyeing up the brandy bottle.  “You take the whorehouses, try to get round as many as you can, I’m sure it won’t be a chore.  Your codename will be Blackfriar.  Patrick,” Pat Nevin looked up, surprised to be included in such rough company.  “You keep an eye on the pubs and clubs, pretend you’re just there to tell everyone your two stories and if you don’t see anything suspicious, move on.  Your codename will be Shadowline.”  I sat up straight to show that I was paying attention and looking forward to hearing my own codename.  They’d all been so masculine so far, even wee Pat Nevin’s conjured up images of cloak, dagger and intrigue.

“Spiers, I want you to monitor Mumsnet, your codename is Chipmunk.” 

“Stop your whinging Spiers,” said Tom Devine as we made our way west from Findlay’s house.  “You have an easy task, all you have to do is sit on your lazy arse and read the blatherings of a bunch of frustrated house-fraus.  I’m the one who should be complaining, how am I supposed to get through more than a dozen brothels a night?  I mean it’s not exactly my birthday, I’ll make six if I’m lucky.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have a shag in them all, Tom” I bleated.  “I mean, I’m a blooming radio star, I’m on BBC Radio Scotland!  How can Findlay not trust me with a better codename than Chipmunk?”

“You know Spiers, I don’t even know why they let you on that radio show; you have the voice of a castrato dwarf choking on marbles.”

“Gosh, you really know how to cheer up your friends, don’t you Tom?”

“Who said you were my friend, you limp wristed smurfcock?  As far as I’m concerned you’re a useless idiot…”

“Useful idiot,” I corrected him.

“Quite, you’re a useful idiot and the sooner you realise that the better off you’ll be.  Now get thee to a coffee shop and fire up some wifi, leave the real work to the men around here” and with that he downed the bottle of brandy he’d sneaked out of Findlay’s house under his waistcoat and kicked open the door to Angela Haggerty’s house.  “Hey Tom, that’s not officially a whorehouse!” I called over to him.

“Ha!  Sorry, force of habit.”