"They use these for elephants. One brings it down. Two kills it. Do you understand what I'm saying," he said.
I nodded. He took my money, zipped up the case and handed it to me.
"The Police shouldn't know it's missing until tomorrow," he said.
Again I nodded. "By then I'll either be okay or past caring."
This time it was him who nodded.
"You can tell me about it over a pint in the Vaults next week," he said. "Whatever yon thing you're after in Govan is...I guarantee the stuff in those darts will keep it quiet for a while. Remember...two kills an elephant."
He left. I stayed and finished my cigarette, just in case anybody saw us together, then I thankfully went back out into the fresh air.
"That was quick," the old pervert shouted after me as I passed. "I hope you got your money's worth."
I gave him the finger and I was followed up the alley by the cackles of the old man. I was just beginning to think I was away and clear when I spotted two beat coppers heading my way. I did a ninety-degree turn, not caring where I was going, and found myself in the entrance hall to the Barrowlands Concert Hall. I pretended to read the advertising posters for forthcoming bands until the cops passed by, and I was about to leave when somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
"Hey, big man. You'll do. Come with me. I need you to hear something."
"Sorry, mate. I'm pushed for time," I said, and he came back with the magic words...
"There's a free beer in it for you."
Even then all my instincts were telling me to be on the move. I was holding stolen goods, and the day was getting on. I should have been back in the office, planning the night to come, looking after Doug...anything but standing in a dark corridor, feeling as if life had just suddenly taken another lurch into the twilight zone.
But the lure of beer won. It usually does.
I followed the man up the dark corridor towards the hall proper. In the gloom I couldn't make out much, but he seemed to be a big fellow, wearing the aging rockers uniform of peg-denims and black leather jacket. His hair swung long in a plait down to the middle of his back, but it was streaked with grey, and he was nearly bald on top. He walked with a swagger that I recognized. Although I couldn't see it, I guessed he was carrying a fairly substantial beer gut.
I was proved right a couple of minutes later when he led me into the hall proper and over to the bar where the light was stronger. He was older than I had imagined...somewhere in his fifties. His face looked like he's been out in the weather for most of those years, like old beaten leather, but when he laughed he looked a good thirty years younger.
There was another man sitting at the bar...a much younger chap, all tattoos and gun-metal piercings. The older man went behind the bar and started pulling a beer.
"I need your opinion on something," he said, handing me a beer. "I've got a new act on the go. The lad here thinks they're too retro...whatever that means. Hit it, girls!"
The hall lights went out, and a single spotlight lit up a drum kit.
'Val Keries and the Shieldmaidens' the logo said. The beat kicked in and my stomach started to vibrate in time. The lights went up to show three women, dressed as Viking warriors, at their places at drums, bass and guitar. They began to pound out a heavy, martial rhythm. It felt like my ears might bleed...I hadn't heard anything like it since Motorhead back in '83.
And then she walked in. She had Jagger's fuck you strut, coupled with an air of a wide-eyed maniac as she screamed over the beat, threatening to tear out her lungs as she sent shivers down my spine. I couldn't make out a single word of the lyrics, but it didn't matter...I couldn't take my eyes off her, and I found myself drifting closer to the stage.
The song ended with the whole band screaming in unison, a rising note that went up and up as the drums whipped the guitar and bass into a crescendo that they all three brought to a halt with military precision. The singer stood stock-still, her chest heaving, sweat running down into her cleavage. I don't think I've ever seen anything sexier in my life.
"Too retro," the younger man said at my shoulder.
The older man came up and joined me. It was only then that I noticed he had a glass eye, green where the other was a piercing blue.
"The youngster here doesn't want to book the girls," he said.
"Too retro," the younger man said. He sounded bored.
"But I've told him, see. They don't just do rockers. They do melodies that would calm a savage beast."
He nodded, and the guitarist started a soft, minor chord sequence I almost recognized. The singer, without a mike, stepped to the front of the stage and began to sing, her high tones echoing around the huge barn of the hall. The song was in a foreign language...maybe Gaelic, maybe Greek, maybe even Norwegian for all I knew. But I knew something...I had heard it before, back on Skye, wafting in the night air over the harbor as I stood at the hotel windows. It spoke to me... of rest from toil, of a simple life in the country, of misty evenings watching the sun going down behind the hills. I had tears in my eyes as she brought the air to a wistful, fading conclusion. Already, I wanted to hear it again.
"See, I told you. Music to calm a savage beast," the old rocker said. I noticed for the first time that he had a small bronze earring, in the shape of a heavy hammer. He stopped talking, as if he was waiting for something.
"Too retro," the young man said again. He was starting to get on my nerves.
"Well, I like them. I don't suppose there's a CD I can buy?"
"I thought you'd never ask," the old rocker said, his face suddenly lit in a big smile. He produced a CD box from an inside pocket and passed it to me, putting it in my jacket pocket.
"No charge," he said. "Track four is the one you want."
"Too retro, too retro," the younger man said, and his eyes took on a glassy, far away look. "Too retro, too retro."
Suddenly he looked less like a man, more like a shop mannequin imbued with temporary life. As I began to back away he kept saying it, over and over. The aging rocker just smiled broadly. The band began to thrash their instruments in time to the chant, and the singer started to squeal the words, staring straight at me as she screamed. "Too retro, too retro."
I backed away out of the hall. Above the sound of the band I heard the rockers last words to me.
"I'll see you around," he said.
And tapped the glass eye.
* * *
I was down the corridor and out the door so fast that I was out on the steps, drinking in sunlight, before I noticed I still had almost a full pint of beer in my hand.
"Hey son, are ye going to drink that?"
It was the old guy who'd bummed the cigarettes from me earlier. I gave him the beer. His old companions all started moving towards him, but he raised the glass and downed the remainder of the beer in two gulps, laughing like a maniac as he showed them the empty glass. I moved away in case he threw up, while the rest of the old men hurled enough abuse to turn the air blue.
I turned back to the concert hall doors. They were locked...from the outside...with a huge padlock. I stepped over and peered through the smoked glass. All was dark and quiet.
"There's been naebody in there for a fortnight," the old man said. "The Police had it closed down after a drug raid."
"You didn't see me coming out?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.
"Round about here, son, naebody ever sees anything."
Five minutes later I was in a bar just off Argyll Street. Although it was barely ten o'clock in the morning, there were already four middle-aged men downing whiskies with beer chasers as if today was the last day of their lives. And with the rate they were going, it just might be.
The incident in the ballroom was already taking on a dream-like quality in my memory, and I might even have written the whole thing off as a stress reaction to recent events...but when I put my hand in my pocket for my cigarettes, I found the CD case. Right where he had put it. My hands shook as I lit the cigarette, but if th
e barman noticed he was too polite to comment...men with bruised faces and shaky hands were not uncommon in the pubs round these parts.
I took my beer to a quiet corner. If I'd stayed at the bar I would have got chatting to the others there, would have started on the whisky, and woken up in a pile of waste somewhere three days hence. Much as I was tempted, both Doug and wee Jim Morton deserved more from me than that. Hell, John Mason deserved more from me than that...if there was a spark of humanity left in him, I had five grand of his mother's money to spend to find it.
As I drank I studied the CD case. Val Kerie and the Shieldmaidens didn't seem to be signed to any record label. The sleeve art was crude, hand drawn in a runic script. There were five songs in total: 'Midgard', 'The Death of Baldur', 'Loki's Testicles', 'The Sea Wives' Lament', and 'Ragnarock'. When I opened the case, I found nothing about the band members or producers, just five long stories; background to the songs. 'The Sea Wives' Lament' told the story of the sea wives in much the same structure as I'd heard it from John Mason, but, seeing as my mind loved anything of a scatological nature, I was drawn to the notes for the third song, 'Loki's Testicles.'
It was a long tale of how a fisherwife lost her husband. Blaming the gods, she called down a curse on them. Odin and Loki visited her, and pleaded with her to lift the spell. She replied that she would...if the gods could raise a laugh in her, for she had not laughed since her husband had died.
So Odin took out his glass eye, and pulled faces, then made the eye appear to look out of his ear, his mouth, and even his belly button. And through it all the fisherwife remained stony-faced.
Then it was Loki's turn. Taking off his belt he looped it once around the horns of one of the woman's goats. The other end he looped around his testicles. Then he roared, scaring the goat so much that it took off at speed, dragging Loki along behind it by his balls. Loki screamed in pain. The fisherwife laughed for a week.
The curse was lifted. The woman had learned to laugh again, Loki had learned something of the ways of the female mind, and Odin had learned how far Loki was prepared to go to get his own way. None of the three would forget the lessons they learned that day.
I actually laughed out loud. The pub went suddenly quiet, and the four men at the bar turned as one and stared at me. Any chance I might have had of joining them in the pursuit of oblivion was now gone. I was now officially 'the nutter in the corner'.
I put the CD away in my pocket, finished my beer quickly, and left.
* * *
I bought a paper at the tube station and read it on the way back to the office. It gave the official line, about the deranged junkie. There was an old picture of Wee Jim, and one of Jock McCall glowering, but my name wasn't mentioned. And although the front page had the official line, there was plenty of speculation inside.
"It was an alien. A f*****g alien. Like in the films" said Willie Sands (34) of Southside Place, Govan. "It came oot of the drain," said Joan Gilbert (63), of Whitelettes Flats, Govan. "A big snake. Ah damn near wet ma knickers." There was more, from the cryptozoologist who compared the situation to a Chupacabra scare in Brazil, from a self-styled 'Fortean Investigator' who said it was obviously an ABC...an Alien Big Cat that was probably a discarded pet. A local Catholic Priest said it might be a visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary...I hoped it wasn't her...she wouldn't last long in Govan. A fundamentalist Christian preacher blamed demons called up by heathen foreign asylum seekers, and a social worker was pleading for understanding for the perpetrator, citing the 'almost Third World' housing conditions in the area.
The police were getting it in the neck from everybody. Even though members of the force were being hurt and killed the paper stopped short of calling for the army to be called in...but not far short, and it hinted that another 'night of terror on the street' would mean heads rolling in high places.
By the time I got back to the office I was surer than ever that I had only the one chance at catching John Mason...and even then, it was probably a slim one.
I was mulling that over as I climbed the stairs to the office, and I was so pre-occupied I didn't hear the voices until I was nearly at the top. But even when I heard them, they seemed to be talking gibberish.
"William McClay 1775 to 1836, Ceres, Fife," I heard Doug say.
"Margaret McClay nee Small 1780 to 1855, christened in Crail, Fife 1781. Married 1798, Anstruther," a woman answered.
"I wonder if they had a reception in the Creel," Doug said.
"Bannocks, faroch and bedding."
"Sounds like a fine name for a firm of solicitors," Doug replied, and they both giggled like schoolchildren.
I walked into the office, and they jumped apart. They looked guilty, as if I'd caught them at something illegal.
"You're feeling better, then?" I said to Doug.
He blushed. "Derek, this is Joanna Marsh," he said. "Our latest client."
I raised an eyebrow. "Doug, I have a client," I said.
"Yes. But I don't."
He got the raised eyebrow treatment again.
"Joanna wants us to trace her ancestry in Scotland. She's American..."
The woman interrupted him.
"A wealthy American," she said. "And Doug here is the first person I've found who seems to know how to find what I'm looking for. I'm willing to pay whatever it takes."
Doug was standing behind her, so she didn't see his puppy dog pleading impression.
"Well, loathe as I am to reinforce a stereotype," I said. "If you've got the money, I've got the inclination."
"As the altar-boy said to the bishop," she said, then her and Doug burst out laughing, while I looked on bemused.
I sat by my desk and picked up the pile of paper Doug had printed out for me. But I didn't read any of it...I was too busy watching Doug with his client. They looked like they had known each other for years...bickering like a cozy couple, cheering in unison as they uncovered another piece of her family jigsaw. If Doug didn't know it, it looked like he'd made a conquest. If so, it would be his first in a long time. After his divorce he'd thrown himself into work, and up until the Johnson Amulet Case he'd always been too engrossed in his studies. After that, he'd been too afraid to say boo to a goose never, mind a woman. Until now, that is.
I thought about baiting him, but just seeing him relaxed was such a rarity these days that I let him be. I'd have to remind him that clients usually paid us, though...it would be just like him to work for her 'as a wee favor'.
And with that thought, I promptly fell asleep.
* * *
I woke to find a typed note lying on the desk in front of me.
Derek,
I've tracked down Joanna's family to 15th Century St. Andrews. We're off there now, and will stay over. I've taken the car, but don't worry, Joanna's paying all expenses.
Remember to read the research. There's some 'Sons of Loki' stuff that might be pertinent. Speaking of which, Val Kerie and the Shieldmaidens? Where did you dig that up? You might be on to something, though...the Runic title in the card inset translates as 'The Trickster', another name for Loki.
Don't forget to take your mobile.
Doug
I swore for a solid minute before I even thought about calming down. Doug's car had been a big part of the plan that had been forming in my head...mainly because it had a CD player. Now I'd have to take the pile of junk that passed as my car. It only had a cassette deck, but worse than that, it was uninsured, untaxed, and I wasn't sure whether it would get out of the garage, never mind across the river to Govan.
Even a shower, a coffee and a cigarette didn't really calm me down. I walked the floor for a while, then dressed in the old suit again. I even put on the trench coat over the top...it had a specially sewn-in deep pocket where I could hide the gun bag. Pausing only long enough to pick up the gun, the CD and my cigarettes, I went to see how much damage a winter in the damp garage had done to the rust-bucket.
It was both worse and better than I feared. Worse in that the
car refused to even think about starting, better in that I had an excuse to never use it again. I felt a bit happier as I closed the garage door on my way out.
That just left the problem of a CD player. I walked down to the electrical goods warehouse in Partick and bought a small square box that advertised 'radio-CD-cassette interoperability', whatever that might mean. But it took batteries and was 'truly portable with integral carrying facility', i.e. it had a handle. I also brought two sets of batteries. While I was standing in the queue to pay, surrounded by special offers for phones and free call time posters, I remembered I'd left the mobile behind in the office.
Outside, in the store car park, I started to unpack the player when a car went past, music blaring. And then it struck me... just because my car didn't have a CD player, didn't mean that all other cars were similarly digitally deprived.
Ten minutes later I was at a car rental office on Kelvin Road.
"What car would you like, sir?" the youth behind the counter asked. "We have a full range from a 600cc town runabout up to a four litre BMW tourer.
"One with a CD player," I said.
I saw him look at the box I'd placed on the counter, then look at me, then back at the box.
"It's looking for a partner," I said.
He was suddenly defensive.
"We charge 50 pounds a day minimum..." he said.
"I don't want to buy a car...just rent one," I said.
He didn't smile, so I didn't press it...renting cars to men with two black eyes and a CD fetish was probably all in a day's work for him. Five minutes later I drove out of the forecourt in a three-door Ford.
* * *
My first stop was back once more to the hospital. Big Jock McCall was sitting up in bed, and he didn't look too displeased to see me, which I took as a good sign.
"What's the damage?" I asked.
"Stomach muscles cut to buggery, and six months of skin grafts and operations," he said. "I feel like I've had a caesarian section. I'd just like to get a good hold of that...that...whatever it was."
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