Jaggy Splinters Read online

  ‘Andrew,’ Donald scolded, loud as he dared, ‘can we get this wretched business finished?’

  ‘For sure, dear brother.’

  Andrew took hold of the shoulders beneath the shroud and together they lifted the body from the slab. The sheet fell away from its head to reveal the face of a street-porter Donald recognised, a deep wound encircling the poor man’s neck. He felt very suddenly weak, as though his insides had turned to poison, and at that moment a further flatus trumped boastfully from the adjacent table. Andrew, the sniggering dunderhead, doubled up with laughter and stumbled backwards under the weight of their inglorious prize. Tripping upon his own tangled feet, he fell with a crash upon a wooden trestle bearing a tray of surgical implements, all of which were propelled upwards in response.

  Donald watched the scalpels arc obliquely through the stale air, the moment of their flight seeming to slow and stretch in time as they swooped towards the imposing mound of the posthumously declamatory cadaver. As was to be expected, they embedded themselves to the hilt in the figure’s bloated bulk. As was far less expected, the bloated bulk sprang suddenly upright and unthroated a scream of pain, the sheet falling away from his furious, startled face but remaining pinned bloodily to his otherwise naked body.

  Donald’s legs made faster sense of it than his eyes or ears, and in an instant he turned and ran for the cupboard, Andrew clambering over their abandoned booty to follow him. The screaming turned to roaring as they scrambled up the bookshop’s staircase, then from behind them they heard the almighty clatter of the undead figure’s bludgeoning ingress.

  Donald threw the bookshop’s front door open but had barely passed through it before he was knocked to the floor by his frantically pursuing brother. They struggled, hopelessly tangled on the wet ground as the furious, animal cry approached from within.

  In moments he would be upon them. Donald closed his eyes in terrified wait for his deserved damnation, but instead the figure charged onwards into the street and continued, howling, along South Bridge until he had disappeared into the storm-swept night.

  Donald turned his head to look at his gaping and quivering brother.

  ‘And tell me Andrew,’ he asked pointedly, ‘is it normal for them to do that?’

  (ii)

  ‘… noo ye see there’s this passage, goes fae the pub’s cellar tae richt unner the morgue ower by. A very profitable wee accident of architecture doon the years, if ye ken ma meanin’. An invaluable conduit for medical knowledge, ye could say! But onywey, there’s this big fat yin comes in wan nicht – no a local, mind – wi’ an arse like a trumpet an’ mibbe too much tae say fur hissel fur a man couldnae haud his ale. Sae once John Barleycorn hud sung him his wee lullabye, we hud his wallet an’ were aw fur dumpin’ him face-doon in a burn. But aul Brophie, the landlord, he says he’s got a better idea…’

  Bampot Central

  There was a six-foot iguana swaying purposefully into Parlabane’s path as he walked down the High Street. It had spotted him a few yards back and instinctively homed in on its prey, recognising that look in his eye and reacting without mercy. Some kind of sixth sense told cats which person in any given room most detested or was allergic to their species, so that they knew precisely whose lap to leap upon. A similar prescience had been visited upon spoilt Oxbridge undergrad hoorays in stupid costumes dispensing fliers for their dismal plays and revues. It was for this reason that a phenomenon such as the Fringe could never have thrived in Glasgow. In Edinburgh, most locals were stoically, if wearily, tolerant of such impositions; through in the west, dressing up as a giant lizard and deliberately getting in people’s way would constitute reckless endangerment of the self.

  ‘There’s no getting past me, I’m afraid!’ the iguana chirped brightly in a stagey, let’s-be-friends, happy-cheery, go on, please stab me, you know it’ll make you feel better tone of voice. ‘Not without taking one of these!’ it continued, thrusting a handful of leaflets at him.

  Parlabane had put on the wrong t-shirt that morning, forgetting that his errands would unavoidably take him through places residents knew well to avoid during the Festival (or to give it its full name in the native tongue, the Fucking Festival). He was wearing a plain white one, which was nice enough but vitally lacked the legend ‘FUCK OFF – I LIVE HERE’, as was borne on several others at home. His August wardrobe, he liked to call it.

  ‘Keeble Kollege Krazees present: Whoops Checkov!’ the leaflet announced. ‘An hilarious pastiche of Russian Naturalism! Find out what Constantine really got up to with that seagull!’ Followed by the standard litany of made-up newspaper quotes. ‘Come along tonight,’ solicited the iguana. ‘It might even cheer you up a bit!’

  Parlabane swallowed back a multitude of ripostes and summoned up further admirable self-control by keeping his hands and feet to himself also. He breathed in, accepted a flyer and walked on. Remain calm, he told himself. He was over the worst of it now, having passed the Fringe Society office. North Bridge was in sight.

  It was his friend’s son’s birthday the next week, and the gift Parlabane wanted to get him was only on sale in a small toyshop on the High Street. If it had also been on sale at the end of a tunnel of shite and broken glass, he’d have had to think long and hard about which store to visit during this time of year; as it was he’d had no such choice. The gift was a posable male doll in a miniature Celtic kit. The intended recipient lived in Los Angeles and would have no inkling of there being any significance to the costume, knowing only from Parlabane’s attached note that the doll was to be named Paranoid Tim and must be subjected to every kind of abuse David’s little mind could dream up.

  He looked down at the pavement, carpeted as it was in further leaflet-litter, mostly advertising stand-up gigs by the A-list London safe-comedy collective, the ones who had each been bland enough to get their own Friday night series on Channel Four. He wondered whether anyone doing stand-up these days wasn’t ‘a comedy genius’, and daydreamed yet again about Bill Hicks riding back into town on a black stallion and driving these lager-ad auditions into the Forth to drown.

  Maybe he should have just sent the kid a card and a cheque, he thought, eyeing a nearby mime with murderous intent. But what the hell, he’d bought it now, and whatever he sent wouldn’t spare him the next ordeal he had to face that day: a trip to the Post Office.

  He picked up pace going down towards Princes Street, as the unpredictable crosswinds made North Bridge an inadvisable pitch for leafleting. The route was therefore comparatively free of obstacles, save for a gaggle of squawking Italian tourists staging some kind of sit-in protest at a bus-stop. Parlabane approached the St James shopping centre with a striding, let’s-get-this-over-with gait, all the while attempting to take his mind off the coming horrors with another calming fantasy involving the three female flatmates from Friends. This time he was disemboweling them with a broadsword, the chainsaw decapitations having grown a little tired.

  It was too simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of the Tories’ Care in the Community policy. There had to be something deeper, to do with tides, ley-lines and lunar cycles, that explained why every large Post Office functioned as an urban bampot magnet, to which the deranged couldn’t help but gravitate. From the merely befuddled to the malevolently sociopathic, they journeyed entranced each day, as though hypnotically drawn by the digitized queuing system. Parlabane remembered those Les Dawson ads a few years back: ‘It’s amazing what you can pick up at the Post Office.’ Yeah. Like rabies. Or maybe anthrax.

  He bought a self-assembly packing box at the stationery counter, then after ten minutes of being humiliated by an inert piece of cardboard, returned to purchase a roll of Sellotape and wrapped it noisily around the whole arrangement until Paranoid Tim was securely imprisoned. It looked bugger-all like a box, but the wee plastic bastard wasn’t going to fall out, which was the main thing.

  Then he joined the queue.

  There were three English crusties immediately ahead of him, each boasting an
ecologically diverse range of flora and fauna in their tangled dreads. They were accompanied by the statutory skinny dog on a string, and were sharing round a jumbo plastic bottle of Tesco own-brand cider and a damp-looking dowt. The dog wasn’t offered a drag, but it looked like it had smoked a few in its time, and probably preferred untipped anyway.

  Behind him there was a heavily pregnant young woman, looking tired and fanning herself with the brown envelope she was planning to post. And behind her were a couple of Morningside Ladies muttering about whichever Fringe show had been singled out for moral opprobrium (and a resultant box-office boost) this year by Conservative Councilor Moira Knox. He’d got off lightly, in other words, and the queue wasn’t even very long. The ordeal was almost over.

  Except that at the post office, it’s never over till it’s over.

  He caught a glimpse of a figure passing by on his right-hand side, skipping the queue and making directly for the counter. Parlabane was following the golden rule of PO survival – never look anyone in the face – but was nonetheless able to make out that the person was wearing a balaclava. His heart sank. It was the number one fashion accessory of the top-level numpties, especially in the height of summer, and this one looked hell-bent on maximum disruption.

  Then from a few feet behind him he heard an explosion, and turned around to see fragments of ceiling tiles rain down upon the betweeded Morningsiders. Behind them was a man in a ski-mask holding a shotgun.

  ‘RIGHT, NAE CUNT MOVE – THIS IS A ROBBERY!’

  Parlabane turned again and saw that the balaclavaed figure at the counter was also holding a weapon.

  Screams erupted as the people milling around the greetings cards and stationery section at the back animatedly ignored the gunman’s entreaty and began pouring out through the swing-doors.

  ‘I SAYS NAE CUNT MOVE!’ he insisted, discharging another shot into the tiles, this time covering himself in polystyrene and plaster-dust. He wiped at his eyes with one hand and waved the shotgun with the other, running to the door to finally cut off the stream of evacuees.

  ‘Lock the fuckin’ door Tommy, for fuck’s sake,’ ordered the balaclava at the front counter.

  ‘I’m daein’ it, I’m daein’ it,’ he screeched back. ‘An’ dinnae use ma fuckin’ name, Jyzer, ya fuckin’ tube, ye.’

  ‘Well whit ye cawin’ me mine for ya stupit cunt?’

  Jesus Christ, thought Parlabane, watching the gunman on door-duty usher his captives back into the body of the kirk. It was true after all: the spirit of the Fringe affects the whole city. The worthy ethos of amateurism and improvisation had extended to armed robbery. Must have been Open Mic Night down at the local Nutters & Cutters, and first prize was lead role in a new performance-art version of Dog Day Afternoon.

  From the voices he could tell they were young; but even if they had remained silent it still wouldn’t have stretched his journalistic interpretative powers to deduce that they were pitifully inexperienced.

  He rewound the action in his head, doing his Billy McNeil replay summary.

  Three seconds in, Mistake Number One: Discharging a shotgun into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention, like simply the sight of the thing wasn’t going to raise any eyebrows. There were several hundred people outside in the shopping mall, and a large police station two hundred yards away at the top of Leith walk.

  Four seconds in, Mistake Number Two: Charging into the shop and leaving umpteen customers behind you, out of sight, with a clear exit out the front door, through which they rush in a hysterical panic.

  Seven seconds in, Mistake Number Three: Blowing another hole in the roof, then turning your back on the remaining customers while you chase after extra hostages that you won’t need.

  Eight seconds in, Mistake Number Four: Telling everybody your first names.

  Ten seconds in, Mistake Number Five: Finding yourself with at least ten customers plus staff as prisoners. One or two is usually plenty.

  In a moment of inspiration, gunman Tommy began rearranging the queuing cordons and ordered everyone behind the rope.

  ‘Stay there an’ dinnae move, right?’

  The customers were uniformly terrified, with the exception of Parlabane, who was just in far too bad a mood to entertain any emotions other than fury and hatred. Decadence is often born of boredom. Nihilism even more often born of a walk through the Old Town in mid-August.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer us to sit down?’ he offered, figuring these guys were going to need all the help and advice they could get.

  Tommy thought about it. He looked like he’d need to do his working on a separate sheet of paper, but he got there eventually.

  ‘Eh, aye.’

  Jyzer was busy making Mistake Number Six: Pointing his weapon at a young teller and ordering her colleagues to stay in their seats, where they could each press their panic buttons just in case the two resounding shotgun blasts hadn’t been heard first-hand at Gayfield Square polis emporium.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Parlabane sighed, the words slipping out before he could stop himself.

  ‘Shut it, you,’ Tommy barked. ‘You got a problem, pal?’

  Yes he did. He had a problem with the fact that the chances of these two eejits shooting someone through incompetence-generated panic were increasing by the second. He considered amelioration the wisest policy right then.

  ‘Eh, no problem,’ he said. ‘But I was wondering… I mean, it’s just an idea really, but maybe you should move the staff over here beside us, you know, so there’s just one group of hostages to keep an eye on, and your china can get on with posting his airmail or whatever.’

  ‘Christ, mate,’ said one of the crusties, ‘why don’t you offer them our bloody wallets as well while you’re at it? I mean whose side are you on?’

  ‘Fuckin’ shut it, you,’ snapped Tommy. ‘An’ it’s no airmail, it’s a fuckin’ robbery, right?’

  Parlabane held his hands up and shrugged. Whatever.

  Jyzer, who by superiority of one synapse was the brains of the outfit, had cottoned on to Parlabane’s thinking and gestured the other tellers to file out from behind the counter. Then he ordered Tommy to collect everybody’s wallets, proving that he was broad-minded and open to suggestions from any of the hostages.

  ‘Sheer fuckin’ genius,’ Parlabane muttered to the crusty, who wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  Tommy backed away, eyes flitting back and forth between the growing pile of wallets and purses and the front doors, outside which a crowd had gathered.

  ‘Oh, I just knew something like this was going to happen,’ muttered one of the Morningsiders to her companion. ‘I just knew it.’

  ‘Me too Morag, me too.’

  Parlabane had suffered enough.

  ‘Well it’s a pity neither of you fucking clairvoyants thought to tip anyone off, then, isn’t it?’ he observed.

  ‘Now, son, there’s no need for that.’

  He looked away. This was the quintessence of British ‘respectability’. There were two brainless arseholes holding them prisoner with shotguns, but they could still get upset about the ‘language’ you used.

  Jyzer’s initially quiet dialogue with the remaining teller was beginning to gain in volume. Parlabane hadn’t caught what Jyzer was asking for, but he wished to hell the stupid lassie would hurry up and give him it, especially as there were now two uniformed plods peering in the doors and hustling the onlookers back. He looked at his watch, figuring the Balaclava Brothers had a few more minutes before an armed response unit showed up to raise the stakes.

  ‘Look, I ken ye’re lyin’, awright? We’ve had information. We ken they’re in there. Insurance Bonds, fae Scottish Widows. They come through here the last Monday o’ every month. So fuckin’ get them or I’ll fuckin’ blow ye away.’

  The girl had tears in her eyes and was struggling to keep her voice steady.

  ‘I swear to God, I’ve never heard of any… Insurance Bonds coming through here. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard of
Insurance Bonds full stop.’

  ‘Look, don’t gie’s it. Last Monday o’ every month. Scottish Widows. It should say it on the parcel.’

  ‘But this isn’t a sorting office. The only parcels coming through here are the ones folk are sending. They go straight in the slots over there, or in the basket through-by. Please, I’m not lying. You can come through and look.’

  ‘I fuckin’ will an’ aw,’ he said, walking around to the counter’s access door. ‘An’ if ye’re lyin’ I’ll fuckin’ mark ye, hen. I’ll no be a minute, Tommy,’ he assured.

  ‘Insurance Bonds?’ one of the tellers asked of a colleague.

  ‘Naw, I’ve never heard of them either.’

  ‘Wouldnae come through here anyway, would they?’ queried another.

  ‘D’you think they’ve got the right place?’

  ‘Fuckin’ shut it yous,’ Tommy ordered again. ‘We’ve had information. We ken whit we’re daein’ so sit nice an’ it’ll aw be by wi’ soon, right?’

  Parlabane sighed again. Insurance Bonds. Jesus Christ almighty. It just got better and better.

  ‘What’s an Insurance Bond, Tommy?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘I tell’t yous aw tae shut it. I ken whit Insurance Bonds are, right?’

  Parlabane made a zipping gesture across his mouth. There was a suspicion growing inside his head. It had germinated early on in the proceedings, but the last few moments had poured on the Baby Bio and it was seriously starting to sprout.

  They sat in silence, apart from the occasional yelp from the crusties’ skinny dog. Tommy’s eyes looked wide and jumpy through the holes in his ski-mask.

  ‘Fuck!’ came a furious, low growl from the back office.

  ‘Fuckin’ Jesus fuckin’ fuck!’

  The girl stumbled nervously out to join the hostage party, followed by Jyzer, whose woolly mask could not conceal that he was little at peace with himself.

  ‘So, d’ye get them?’ Tommy asked.

  Jyzer took a slow breath to calm his rage. It didn’t quite make it.