I get back out and drop Gus off at the station. I drive out tae Rossi’s and I stick on a Michael Bolton compilation tape I made. ‘How Am I Supposed to Live Without You’ off of Soul Provider comes on, and I sing my heart out. Then Bolton’s version of ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’, which is ten times better than any nigger shite, comes blasting out and by the time I get to Rossi’s surgery and park the Volvo I’m in better spirits.
They think that they can drag Bruce Robertson down? All the schemies, coons and what have you? Get fuckin real you sad cunts!
– I’ve been applying that cream you gave me, Doctor Rossi, but it just makes me worse.
– Mmm, says Rossi, – If you just drop your trousers.
I comply, wondering whether this cunt’s an arse bandit. It seems that the bastard can never wait to get my fuckin keks off. Rossi, of course. Italian. Pape. These cunts are all shirt-lifters. That’s why the population of Ireland’s so fuckin low. Tattie famine my hole, it’s cause all these fenian cunts are erse-shag-gers. Same fuckin rules. Rossi, well, I ken it’s his job, but what a perfect cover for brown-bombers.
– Yes, yes, the infected area is more widespread. It’s now all over the thighs as well as the testicles. Yes. Are you avoiding foods with a high fat content?
– Aye . . . I tell him. The cunt expects me to fuckin starve.
– Well, I think we have to change creams, he says, writing out a new prescription. – I know it’s difficult, but try not to scratch the infected area. These look . . . well, they look like nail marks. I can’t stress enough the importance of washing and changing underwear on a regular basis. Cotton briefs preferably, or better still, boxer shorts for the circulation of air.
I need a fuckin washing done. That slag’s abandoned me; trying to fuckin well kill me! She kens I cannae work that fuckin machine. Huvnae hud a proper cooked meal in ages, a roast or something. When a man loves a woman right enough. I fuckin well followed her oot tae Australia. I fuckin well came back here for her. When a man loves a fuckin woman.
Trouble is, they dinnae love men!
– The thing is, ah’m eatin like a horse Doc, but I’m still losing weight . . . I’m worried I might have picked up something . . .
– You mean like an STD?
– Nah . . . well, aye . . .
– Have you been having different sexual relationships?
I smile at him. – You know how it is Doctor . . . normal heterosexual red-blooded male . . .
He looks at me strangely and I wonder if this cunt does know how it is.
– I want a urine sample, but . . . Rossi produces a plastic carton with a lid, – what I’d also like from you is a stool sample.
This cunt must be a fuckin perve of the highest order. I’ll have to give Inglis his number. – What for? I ask coldly.
– Concerning the issue of your weight, I think you may have worms. Tapeworms.
– What does that involve?
– They are harmless parasites, but they can be hard to get rid of.
– I’ll go to the toilet now, I stand up.
– That won’t be necessary . . . he says, – in your own time . . .
– I can do it now, I tell him, exiting. I head to his bog and fill the container with sludgy lager and curry shite. The cunt wants shite, ah’ll fuckin well gie him shite!
I leave Rossi with my crap and pish and drive into town. Worms. It doesnae bear thinkin about. My thoughts are interrupted by a message from Ray, telling me that it’s going off down the flats. Colin Moss went up there carrying a holdall, so the D.S. boys’ve got the sniffer dugs down there and are raring to do Moss, Richards and Allan.
The roads are pretty bad and I’m shaking at the wheel, worried that I’m going to miss all the fuckin action. Fuck looking for somebody who topped a coon, this is real poliswork. I stick my light on the top of the car and hit the siren as I tear doon Leith Walk.
OUT MA FUCKIN WEY YA CUNTS!
By the time I get down to the flats, a huge crowed has gathered outside. Some jakeys from the lodging house sit huddled on to a bench, drinking strong largers and fortified wines and making insulting comments at two young uniformed spastics, one whose ears glow red with the cold and the humiliation. Some other polis are trying to cordon the area off and disperse the crowd. I see that something’s on the ground. As I get closer it looks like the remains of an animal but it has been ripped open and crushed beyond recognition, strewn all over the slushy pavement. I look towards the heavens suspecting our old friend gravity and the flats. This was probably last year’s model whose collar had grown a little tight and was jettisoned to make way for the incoming Christmas puppy dog.
Then I clock Ray, who looks a bit sheepish and tells me that the dug was one of ours, a sniffer in the advance party. I savour the prospect of an alliance with the RSPCA, destroying the peace-loving, caring credibility of these hippy, squatting cunts. They murdered that poor animal! Ha! Gotcha!
Ray nods towards George Mackie, the dug-handler, who’s sitting on the pavement being comforted by a poliswoman. I ken George from the craft. Lodge St John, Corstorphine.
– Bruce . . . he wheezes . . .– eh’s gone Bruce . . . Pedro’s away . . . ma Pedro . . . the best sniffer oan the force . . . eh’s gone . . .
– What happened George, I ask, bending over him.
– Eh found a sheet ay acid . . . but they’d hidden it in the kitchen . . . he slipped his leash . . . they hid the acid wi these dug biscuits . . . poor Pedro ate the lot, Mackie moaned, sounding himself like a dog in pain. – Perr Pedro . . . eh jist totally loast it . . . eh freaked and even turned on me! Me Bruce! I had him since he was a puppy . . . the runt ay the litter . . . I admit that I truncheoned him . . . it wis self-defence Bruce . . . eh just lept oot the windae . . . the best dug ah’ve ever hud . . . the best sniffer on the force . . . fourteen floors up, eh never stood a snowball’s chance in hell . . .
I move back over to Ray. – Where’s Moss? Ms Richards? Mr Allan?
Lennox points across to this trio of crusty bastards looking smug and getting into a BMW. The car’s being driven by Conrad Donaldson, Q.C.
– Nowt we can do Bruce, Ray says. – Listen Bruce, c’mere the now . . . Lennox furtively gestures over to a tenement stair door, far from the crowd. – I fucked up. I had the sheet ay acid to plant and I was about tae dae it when the fuckin dug ripped it out my hand . . . he showed me a toothmark on one of his fingers. – George was in the living room and it came intae the kitchen . . . he should have been with it at all times . . . he didnae follow procedure.
– What was in Moss’s holdall? Can we no do them for that?
– A fucking Christmas pudding. I didn’t even bother confiscating it to take it doon the lab for analysis. The smart cunt was straight on to Donaldson, who was here within ten minutes. They were laughing their fuckin heads off, Lennox smirks slightly, seeing the funny side. I don’t. I walk away in a raging fury and get back into the car.
That night I go out for a drink with Clell, who’s going on about his new job in traffic.
– It’s great tae be free fae Serious Crimes Bruce, he says, raising his glass. – It’s given me time tae think about what I want tae do with my life. That’s the problem wi Serious Crimes, you shut off too much. You just go through it . . . he makes his palms go parallel and forward like a train.
– Well, you’ll have plenty of time to think sitting with those vegetables in traffic, I tell him.
Clell looks closely at me. There’s a slight tick in his eye. It seems as if I’ve upset him.
– That’s just the way I want it, he bleats.
Cunt thinks that his worries are over and that he can rub our faces in it because he’s got a job as a vegetable. Wrong! We are not interested in the trivial concerns of one Mister Andrew Clelland.