‘Now, if we can just organise somethin’ similar for Torremolinos,’ said Matt.
McGregor laughed, having been thinking along the same lines for Tynecastle.
He began picking his way between the evacuees to reach Dougie at the helm; their gratitude at getting away alive, he noted, had not tempered remarks about just how powerfully the boat reeked of fish. They did have a point, right enough: McGregor’s eyes were watering. The ones not commenting on it were only refraining because they had their heads over the sides, boaking for all they were worth.
‘Out of the fryin’ pan, into the fire, eh, Hector?’ Dougie said as McGregor approached.
‘Whit?’
‘Well, I dinnae think oor Molly’ll be in the best mood when you get back.’
Oh bugger, he thought, recalling that his last words to her were: ‘I’ll no’ be a minute.’
‘Aye, mibbe I should’ve taken my chances wi’ the—’
McGregor never got to finish his sentence. Beside him, one of the puking punters had sprung back from the edge, shrieking in fright as the last of the balaclava-bampots came clambering suddenly up the side, utterly covered in sick. The bloke must have been hanging on to the old tyres that buffered the sides of the boat, then climbed up when he decided he couldn’t take the deluge any more.
McGregor looked frantically about the deck as the man got his first leg over the edge, a pistol gripped in one dripping hand. McGregor was unarmed, having eagerly ditched the machine gun as soon as they pulled away from that jetty. Vale was still tooled up, but he was way back at the stern, and there were dozens of bodies between there and here. On the floor beside his feet, however, there was just the thing.
McGregor reached into the ice-box and grabbed the monkfish by its tail, then spun on one heel and swung it at the intruder’s head with both hands. It connected with a splat and a crunch of bone, he wasn’t sure of which party. The hijacker crashed to the floor, his gun going off once before it fell from his grip and slid across the deck. The bullet hit the boy McQuade, but he was all right: it only got him in the shoulder.
McGregor pulled the balaclava off the unconscious figure.
‘Connor,’ Jackson growled, arriving from behind and drawing his pistol.
‘No you don’t,’ McGregor warned him. ‘He’s my collar. I’ll take it from here. There’s a plod in Rosstown I’d really like him to meet.’
There were flashing lights all along the front of the liftings yard as the Ha’penny Thing chugged slowly into dock: polis, ambulances and the fire brigade, though what the fuck they thought they were going to achieve, McGregor wasn’t sure. Not without Red Adair, anyway.
Dougie and a couple of the evacuees threw mooring ropes to the party waiting on the pier. DS McLeod was standing among them.
McGregor bent down and reached for the monkfish.
later
Finlay Dawson was apprehended at Glasgow Airport, attempting to board a flight bound for Newark. He and William Connor were both detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, with the recommendation that once they died, they should be cryogenically frozen until such time as technology could revive them, whereupon they would each begin another life sentence. It was that kind of judge. You can just be unlucky.
Delta Leisure’s CEO, Jack Mills, was arrested in the US on charges including fraud, conspiracy and murder, and his company indicted at corporate level. In keeping with the renowned expediency of the US legal system, it is expected that the case will come before a judge some time around March 2009. Prosecutors have apologised for the delay, but have explained that they are unauthorised to pull out all the stops unless Mills does something really serious, like get his cock sucked then lie about it.
Ally McQuade, following marriage, honeymoon and convalescence, wrote a screenplay based on his experiences, working successfully in collaboration with his former English teacher, Mrs Angela Laurence. The script was sold to a major studio for a six-figure sum, and is currently in pre-production. Matt Black turned down a lucrative offer to play himself, citing tour commitments. Renny Harlin is directing.
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night Page 35
