FUCKEN STUPID SHITING CUNT!

Our fist slams the dashboard repeatedly until our hand is swollen and almost too sore to hold the wheel. Then we exit and go into the pub. A pocket of shrapnel: barely enough for a pint of lager. I feel like a fuckin jakey as I walk into this tiny dive of a public bar. There’s a small lounge separate from it next door, partitioned by a wooden panel and some frosted glass. From behind it I can hear the hee-hawing laughter of a four-bacardi slag, when I don’t even have enough to stand the cow one. I get the pint of lager up and throw two-thirds of it back in no time. There’s a party of auld cunts playing dominoes in the corner and a nae-mates fucker reading the Evening News at the bar. I recognised him as polis, Drylaw I think. I finish the pint quickly and exit the dive, getting in the motor and driving swiftly back to Collie. I’m focused all the way on the bank cards which are in the inside pocket of our jacket over the chair in the front room.

With great despondency we, I, we (we’re all here now) clock a car parked outside our house. It looks vaguely familiar. We consider double-backing, but we need our cards and our money. We ignore the occupant of the car, even now we recognise it as Chrissie and storm down the path. But she’s straight out after us.

– Bruce . . . I’ve tried to call you at work, she says. Her swine-like nostrils flare at me.

Why pick on Bruce all the time, there’s others too, why can’t they fuckin well dae anything . . .– She’s ill you know, she could be dying, we tell her. We produce our keys and put them in the lock.

– Who?

– Shirley, my sister-in-law. She’s ill. Same rules apply, we say, turning the lock.

– Too bad, she says, pushing in the door after me.

We try to repel her but she’s all over us like a cheap suit and she’s shouting, – C’mon, I want to turn off the gas for you, come on, and her hands in my flies. – God, this place stinks . . . c’mon Bruce . . .

It’s only fuckin well me, only me . . . I’m on my fuckin ain here . . .

I pull away, but she’s still coming on, this fucking cackling witch, her mocking, vicious hoor’s eyes; and I’m pulling her hands away, but I’m stiffening against my will. – Leave me . . . leave me . . .

– C’moan . . .

She’s got my cock out and she’s sucking me off and we are crying, crying for Shirley no no no crying for ourself and she’s got my belt off and I’m saying, – Naw naw but Chrissie, wait a minute, wait a minute Chrissie, and she’s diving out of her clothes and she gets the cord from her bag and wraps it round her own neck.

I’m shivering and trembling and I need my charlie, it’s in my pocket, and I need to see Shirley or Carole . . . she’s the one I need . . . and she’s tightened the belt around my neck before I can speak and her sharp painted nails dig into the foreskin of my semi she’s pushing me back on to the couch and it’s horrendous and she’s pushing her cunt on to it against my will and thrusting on to me and the friction’s hurting me and she’s choking me harder and I can’t breathe or speak as the grip tightens . . .

– Git fuckin harder ya silly wee poof! C’moan! Get it in! She’s rubbing and twisting harder and I’m getting harder and it’s going up, she’s enclosing me, and I want to fuck this bitch to pieces but there’s no way, cause although I’m hard now she’s fucking the life out of me, throttling it out of me and she’s screaming: – Turn off ma fuckin gas! Fuck harder! Move! Move! Turn oaf ma fuckin gas!

I’m choking and blacking out as I convulse and she’s screaming and growling and her teeth bite my bottom lip as she roars and bucks and crashes before she pulls away gasping and I watch my cock disintegrate.

She lies back and lights a cigarette. – Mmmm. That was great. What’s wrong Bruce? You okay? You’re greeting like a wee laddie!

– Shirley’s ill, I say. – My sister-in-law. She’s no well.

I’m crying for myself.

She looks at me and shakes her head. – You’re no fun any more Bruce.

– We hear voices Chrissie. Aw the time. Do you ever hear them? All our life we’ve heard them. The worms.

– What? What are you on about?

– We say this, they say that. We turn the records on loud. It’s like the messages in the records when they play them backwards. Like me and her. We’re together still, you ken that? It’s all of us . . . I, we, I hear myself singing in a low, tuneless voice, – Why not take all of me . . .

– I have to go, she says, pulling her clothes on. – Whatever it is that you’re on, you should lay off it.

We say nothing, we’re just willing her not to be there. Depart depart depart naebody asked you tae come

When she goes, we binge on the coke we got from Ray. After a few hits we wish the cow would come back cause I’d really show that cunt, but naw, my cock’s still as limp and sad as Ray Lennox’s that time with with Shirley.

Cause it was me and Shirley and I let her down and I can’t blame the others.

I go to phone, but decide against it. I try to light the fire, but my hands are trembling. A bit of Toal’s manuscript has been preserved, brittle and dry. in BILL TEALE’s office. [ANDERSON] This psycho, you reckon he’ll strike again? [TEALE] What makes you so sure it’s a he? [ANDERSON] C’mon Bill. They usually are. [TEALE] I think that our mystery lady may have more to do with this than we imagine. ANDERSON looks visibly flustered. [ANDERSON] What makes you say that? [TEALE] Basically, there’s two things. One, she’s vanished off the face of the planet which means someone’s covering up for her, someone perhaps, who knows a lot about this investigation, and secondly

What the fuck . . .

What the fuck does this cunt Toal know? I should have read that script. Fuckin Carole!

Daft fucking cow.

Fuck.

I should have read that script. Knowledge is power, or so they say. But fuck it. Keep your head down and your heart hard and you’ll be okay. Slow breathing.

Slow breathing.

Easily done.

Our hearts are hardened in this business. They have to be as hard as our sponsors’ heads and that’s what fucks us up. They can afford to be hard because they can abstract it all and they can do that because they are removed from it all.

We, on the other hand, must pay the physical and psychic price so that these pampered rich cunts can flounce around unperturbed.

Naw, there isnae such a thing as a free lunch. We always pey.

This morning they come in the thin and miserable shape of Drummond. I am out on patrol with her. Why? I don’t know why. I can’t think straight. She is going on about the case: victims, suspects, scenes of crimes, reports, forensic, analysis, politics and I want to scream: SHITE. I DON’T FUCKIN CARE ABOUT THIS. I’M FUCKIN WELL DYING HERE!

Cause I am.

I can’t breathe in this fuckin car. That fuckin coke flares up my sinuses, my bronchitis. I’m coughing and shaking and the smell of her perfume is unbearable. She must be on the rag dousing herself like that. A pathetic cover-up job. It’s stinking like a hoor’s cubicle in the red-light district on a Saturday night at the height of the tourist season back in the Dam, this fucking motor.

This isnae Hogmanay . . . this is fuckin Halloween . . .

Out with her of all people. Cruising them. Looking for Ocky. Her. Never fuckin polis.

But we are fuckin polis.

We are sick and shivering and frightened. Lennox tried to poison me with that coke. It was full of shit. He’s trying to kill us. We feel like shouting at Drummond: SEE IF WE DIE IT’S RAY LENNOX’S FAULT, RAY DRUG ADDICT LENNOX, THE SAME RAY LENNOX YOU THINK THE SUN SHINES OUT HIS ARSE BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S LIKE. HE WILLNAE FUCK YE LIKE THE WEY YE WANT, WE’VE SEEN HIS FUCKIN COCK AND IF WE DIE IT’S LENNOX THAT’S THE MURDERER