Filth (6 page)

Nope, it’s not coming today. I turn back to page three.

– Hi Bruce, Gus says, passing over a bag of Crawford’s chips to Peter Inglis, – want tae hear yir stars?

– Aye, awright then. He’s distracted me from Alicia from Hull. Fuckin built, that yin.

– What are you?

– Taurus.

– Right: ‘You’ve bitten off more than you can chew and you are having to muddle through as a result . . .’

– That’s fuckin right enough! And we all know whose fault that is! I point at the ceiling.

–‘. . . Not to worry – this week’s solar eclipse should have cleared away some of the uncertainty surrounding your future . . .’

Ray Lennox has just come in: – Sounds like promotion Bruce, he laughs.

– ‘. . . After that, you’re more inclined to relax and enjoy yourself.’ Whoah-ho! The winter’s week, Peter takes over.

– That must be Amsterdam they’re talkin about! I rub my hands together, just as the big blonde piece comes in. She’s passing roond some notes.

The mild elation doesnae last long. A fuckin memo fae Niddrie.

INTERNAL MEMO

From :
Chief Superintendent James Niddrie

To :
All Divisional Inspectors (see attached mailing list)

Re :
Racism Awareness Training Modules

As you will be aware, concern has been expressed regarding the handling of racial issues within the Department. Senior Management has been aware of this for some time, but following on from recent criticisms it has been decided that all staff will undertake Racism Awareness Training modules, run by our Personnel and Equal Opportunities staff. Priority will be given initially to senior staff and all officers involved in cases deemed to be racially sensitive.

This course will be run by Amanda Drummond and Marianne San Yung.

I can’t believe this. Toal and Drummond. I was up there this morning and fuck all was said to me. Me, who’s supposed to be the number two man on this investigation, which, as Toal’s formally heading it, means number one. This is back-of-a-fag-packet thinking. She went behind my fuckin back wi another one ay her coon erse-licking Girl Guide projects.

– Waste ay fuckin time! Peter Inglis moans, looking over at me.

– See who’s fuckin runnin it n aw, I say, – that fuckin silly wee lassie! What the fuck does she ken aboot polis work? I look at Ray Lennox. He’s been sniffin aroond that daft wee tart. He looks a bit guilty and tries to change the subject. – Dinnae ken how we’re gaunny solve this murder case if we’re aw gaunny be oan a course, he shrugs.

– Bloody nonsense, Gus agrees. The boys are not amused about this. They’re looking to me as Fed rep to take the lead. – What dae ye reckon Bruce?

– I think we should just go along with it. As you said Ray, I turn to Lennox, – we’re no gaunny solve this case sitting talking tae silly wee lassies, but that’s their decision, I shrug.

– Toal just wants tae look good wi aw they cunts on the police board, aw they forum bastards, Peter Inglis complains. Too thin for a polisman over thirty is Inglis. Fuckin Aids victim if ye ask me.

– I’d play it cool, just gie the cunts enough rope tae hing thirsels wi, I nod.

Later on I bell my wee Civil Service mate Bladesey and tell him to meet us later up at the Lodge. Then I nip out to Crawford’s for an egg roll. It’s fucking well freezing out here, although the cold can’t block out the acrid Dame Judi Dench which rises up from my flannels. I’ll have to get them dry-cleaned. I open my overcoat and flap it to see if the ming is as steadily rancid as I imagine it to be, but it only comes in the odd wafting wave. Those flannels are good for a couple of days yet.

I see a dog-eared envelope protruding from the top inside pocket of my coat. It’s the letter to Tony from Chelmsford that I’ve had in my pocket for a month. Could do wi getting doon there again for a bit of rumpy-pumpy, maybe in the New Year. I’m thinking about that Diana cow and her big bare arse sticking in my face and my flannels again stretch and that familiar bulge is once more in evidence. I button up my overcoat as some women come past. Sorry girls, you don’t get a flash of quality meat like this without putting the readies on the table. That Diana, she’s fuckin well getting it again though; I can’t wait to get back down there. It’s those wee breks that keep ye going. Without them all you have is the job. And the games.

At Crawford’s they’ve ran out of scrambled egg. It’s probably been nicked by the hard-hatted schemies who should be daein their fuckin jobs rather than fartin aboot in takeaways all day. A waste of fucking police time.

Investigations

It was a good night at the pool round robin. I won the tournament, grinding down Lennox’s resistance and emerging 4– 3 victor after losing the first two games. The sad cunt took the hump and fucked off. Don’t play with the big boys if your cue action isn’t up for it and Lennox’s sure ain’t: at any sport. So now I’m out in the frosty streets with my mate Bladesey, who’s coming to the Dam on holiday with me. I fancy carrying on here. Too right I do. It’s snowing lightly. I catch a snowflake and marvel at its perfection through a lager haze, before it disintegrates in the heat of my hand.

It’s starting to fall heavier as I steer a reluctant Bladesey into a scabby drinking den down in the Cowgate, one of those dives with a late licence which is full of students and pishheids. I stomp my feet to shake the snow off my boots and set up two more pints. We find a seat and I hear some cunt at the next table talking aboot the fitba, he’s saying something like Stronach’s been a good servant but there isnae a full ninety minutes in him anymair. I’m considering this rather obvious point when out of the corner of my eye I see a completely wrecked auld cunt in faded but clean clathes, noising up some students. The young cunts are lapping it up though, indulging the auld fuckin nobody.

– Isn’t that the bohemian chap, Arthur Cormack, you know the old chap who recites the poems? Bladesey’s asking me.

I look at him and scoff. – You call the cunt a bohemian, but what does that mean? Tae me that’s a fuckin jakey.

– Well actually, he has had a collection of poetry published, and it did win an Arts Council award.

– That’s what a bohemian is though, that’s the definition: a sponging alcoholic jakey cunt who manages to con rich liberal wankers intae believing that he’s some fucking intellectual. He’s a fuckin jakey! He lives in the doss-hoose. You can call him what the fuck you like, but tae me he’s just a fucking sponging jakey cunt!

I look across and note that some shaggable wee student birds are making a fuss of this stinking bundle of rags and I detest him even more.

– Actually, I don’t know . . . if he lived on the left bank of Paris or somewhere like that, he’d be accepted universally as a bohemian . . . Bladesey says, taking off his glasses and rubbing the lenses with a cloth. One of Bladesey’s mince pies is in much worse nick than the other so one lens is far thicker.

– Fuckin froggy cunts, what the fuck dae these cunts ken? A jakey’s a fucking jakey. I point across at the auld cunt. –Ye call that art? Ah’ve heard um. A jakey mumbling fuckin crap poems at people who dinnae want tae fucking well hear them. So that’s what they call art now, is it? Or some fucking schemie writing aboot aw the fucking drugs him n his wideo mates have taken. Of course, he’s no fucking well wi them now, he’s living in the south ay fucking France or somewhere like that, connin aw these liberal fucking poncy twats intae thinkin that ehs some kind ay fuckin artiste . . . baws! Fuckin baws! I shout over at the jakey and his student pals.

Bladesey looks a bit nervous. – Bruce, is there anywhere we could, eh actually, ehm go . . .

– Point taken Bladesey. It smells like Scrubbers’ Close in here, I snort, looking over at the pisheid and a student with that nigger hair and rags these rich white kids like tae wear. – Come back to my gaff, I tell him. We’re both three sheets to the wind.

– Your wife won’t mind?

– Naw, she’s at her mother’s at Aviemore. The auld girl’s not so well. Heart disease.

– Oh dear . . . Bladesey looks at me sadly, like that fuckin dug, what’s it they call the cunt . . . Droopy, like that dug Droopy in the cartoons.

– Brought it on herself, daft auld cunt, I explain. –You go tae that hoose and the amount of butter they eat, and they fry everything. Sweets, chocolate as well, and fags . . .

– I see . . . I see . . . Bladesey always says in a tone which tells me that, no, the cunt does not fuckin well see. Your best psychologist is the one on the force, pished or no. I’m thinking aboot her mother and I’ll give the auld doll this: she always made a good nosh up: Plenty meat. Needed rode though: that was her problem, ever since the old boy kicked it. No enough rumpy-pumpy tae keep the circulation ay blood flowing. Nae wonder her arteries clogged up. The auld boot’s ain fault for being sae fuckin frigid. I warned Carole that she’d go the same wey if she didnae lighten up a bit on the shaggin front.

We down our pints and head outside and I flag down a taxi and we’re off towards mine. The snow’s really starting to lie which means total chaos for the rest of us and serious OT for those traffic spastics who are regarded as the lowest of the low by the Serious Crimes boys. The taxi driver’s blethering away sociably, thinking, mistakenly, that this is going to earn him a tip. Wrong! Only an imbecile would think of giving an Edinburgh taxi driver a tip. Sorry, my sweet, sweet friend, but the same rules apply. When we stop and get out of the cab, I work off all my smash on to the cunt, counting it into his hands as his mouth becomes a fraught, shivering gash of disapproval.

– Bladesey, got any two pences? Two twos or four ones is all I need.

– There’s a five p, Bladesey says. I take it and drop it into the driver’s hand, taking back one penny. – There, I tell the cunt cheerfully, – that’s us square. Three pounds sixty pence.

– Thanks very much, he muses.

– Not at all, thank
you
very much, I smile. The fuckwit pockets the coins and speeds off as I open the gate.

– Did you not give the chap a tip? Bladesey asks.

– I would not give that spastic the shite off my shoe, I tell him.

– There’s a couple of chaps from the Lodge that drive taxis . . .

– Ah ken that good and well Brother Blades. Just because some fucking cowboy’s in the craft, it doesnae make him due a tip in my book. Same rules apply. A tip? These bastards, ah widnae gie them a bad tip oan the fuckin gee-gees. Do we care? Do we fuck!

In the kitchen I pour myself a good measure of twelve-year-old Chivas Regal and I fill a glass with Tesco’s Scotch Whisky out of one of these plastic bottles for Bladesey. I’m thinking that it’s our national drink and with him being an English cunt, he won’t notice the difference and he’s three sheets anyway. I could have pished in a glass and he wouldnae have kent any better.

After a while he looks a bit melancholy. – You’re so lucky with your wife. She seems to understand you, he bleats.

It looks like he’s ready to open up about his relationship with this big piece he married last year. Bunty, her name is. He worships the big cow: it’s Bunty this, Bunty that, wi the wee cunt. Of course, she seems to treat Brother Clifford Blades like shite. In my experience this means that the woman needs a good fucking or a better one than Bladesey’s capable of giving her. Same rules apply.

– It’s all a question of values, I tell him. – I mean . . . it’s like what you want out of life. Mind you, I’ll need to give this place a good tidy before she comes back! It’s like a midden!

– Mmm, you certainly will, Bladesey says, sipping at his whisky. I’m sure the cunt’s face screwed up a wee bit. Fuck’um. Cheeky wee bastard.

– What about your daughter Bruce? What school’s she at?

– Eh, Mary Erskine’s. Still at the primary likes.

– Actually, em, I’m, eh, having a bit of a difficult time with Craig. Bunty’s so protective of him. He’s never really accepted me. It’s not as if I’ve set myself up as a father substitute . . . I mean, I thought, play it all by ear . . . your daughter, you never have any problems with her, do you?

– . . . There was a wee incident . . . she was caught telling lies, silly wee lies, it was nothing major, it’s all behind us now . . . I tense up. I should not be telling that bastard any of my business. The best form of defence is attack . . .– Listen Bladesey, my auld mucker, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?

– Well, I . . .

– You and Bunty. Are you shagging her?

Bladesey looks at me, then averts his gaze. That cunt’s no daein any shaggin, no fuckin way. When he starts to speak, he seems embarrassed, but not offended, no that I gie a fuck. – Well . . . eh . . . actually, that side of things haven’t been too great lately . . .

I nod sternly as Bladesey coughs out his humiliation to me. This wanker actually thinks I care. Wrong!

– I suppose I’ve actually, eh, always been a bit of a loner . . . always had difficulty in making friends . . . that’s why the craft’s actually been so good for me . . . everybody’s accepted . . . Getting this job up here and meeting Bunty . . . well, I thought I’d landed on my feet. I mean Bruce, I don’t know what she wants. I never so much as raise my voice at her, even when she’s being rather unreasonable to me and I always provide. I mean . . .