Irvine Welsh - Filth

I rip off the title page and the first two and stick them in the fire I’ve built. The last copy of Toal’s masterwork and here it fuckin well goes! I decide to get down to some real writing and try the News Of The Screws crossword.

This crossword’s getting harder every fuckin day. The rings of Saturn . . . the rings of Uranus . . .

The ring of that fuckin phone.

And I left the machine off.

It’s always a mistake to answer the phone at hame. It’s a weakness, a polisman’s weakness: nosiness. I needed to find out who it is and it’s fuckin Toal. This means that I’ll have to watch what I put on the OTA 1–7. He’s giving us grief. He’s not impressed with two and a half pages of a progress report, I mean, how could a prodigious writer like Toal be? So he’s blabbering on about the topped coon, this Efan Wurie (he’s a Effen Worry tae me awright), how the Sambo-boy’s auld man’s sent a letter to the Home Secretary who’s nipped the Chief Constable’s heid who’s nipped Niddrie’s heid, who’s nipped Toal’s and now he’s nipping mine. This is why he’s taken Drummond off the case as lead officer: too many big guns firing off in all directions for a lightweight. I feel like asking him, But what about D.S. Amanda Drummond, what about her pivotal role in this investigation? Surely she proved a capable enough team leader for the Home Secretary to directly address such concerns to her? Ha!

But I can’t speak up. Toal. He’s giving me grief, but only because he has grief . . .

All I can think about is that boy’s skull, bashed in, the way his head was caved in and how it wasn’t like a heid at all, just like a broken silly puppet face, about how when you destroy something, when you brutalise it, it always looks warped and disfigured and slightly unreal and unhuman and that’s what makes it easier for you to go on brutalising it, go on fucking it and hurting it and mashing until you’ve destroyed it completely, proving that destruction is natural in the human spirit, that nature has devices to enable us to destroy, to make it easier for us; a way of making righteous people who want to act do things without the fear of consequence, a way of making us less than human, as we break the laws . . .

. . . but she was wrong. Wrong to do that; to try and prove something to me. Or try to get me to prove something to her about how I feel for her. I’ll never turn her in though. Never. But she was wrong, she shouldn’t have fuckin done it.

Toal’s stopped rabbiting. He’s looking for us to respond. We tell him what we have said in the report, that we have sent Dougie Gillman on liaison duty with the Forum on Community Relations and sweet darling Mandy Drummond has been given the task of overseeing the clerical procedures of tracing the hammer.

We, I, on the other hand, am engaged in active surveillance of the enemy. The ned enemy.

– Lean on these fuckers, these silly wee fascist cunts, Toal’s telling us. I wonder if he’s sussed out the missing manuscript yet. Poor Toalie boy.

Toal of course is the enemy. This is stark crystal clear. We were compelled to engage with this man, as outright opposition would have aroused his suspicion, but our strategy of quietly finding his weaknesses, then undermining him has paid dividends. We must continue to put our distaste for him to the side in order to keep achieving this.

We have been negligent in our duties. Other matters have dealt with too much of our time. Possession by hoors. Running after witches. Containment. Control. We have to break free. We

I go into Toal’s office and he’s looking destroyed. The thing is I can’t seem to derive any pleasure from it. Something is wrong. With me. I’m feeling out of sorts. I must cut back on the drink. It’s fuckin well killing me.

I’d been thinking that I’d perhaps be in a strong position to blackmail Toal into supporting my promotion application as I have the only copy of his draft screenplay, albeit minus the first few pages. After shop-talk on the fruitless Wurie case, he says, – It’s not been a good time for me Brother Robertson.

Does Toal suspect that I’ve half-inched his screenplay or is he just playing the craft card to cast the net? – How so Brother Toal? I ask haughtily.

– I’ve lost some files, he points at the machine on his desk.

– Computer files?

– Yes.

– I’m not a great fan of new technology. That’s computer files for ye. They’re a bit like brother freemasons in the craft: it doesn’t matter how full of shit they are, you have to remember to back them up.

Toal smiles painfully, then looks thoughtful for a bit. Then he says something which confuses but encourages me. – Often brothers are being supported in ways which they cannot imagine. Then he says, wearily, – If you hear anything Bruce, let me know. I’d appreciate it.

– You mean with files and things . . . I ask, playing the daft laddie to give myself a bit of space.

– Anything, he says sniffily.

The conversation with Toal has made me feel uneasy. What should have been a fucking triumph has a bitter and hollow aftertaste. I can’t think why. Anyway, the day seems to be drifting away from my control. I keep thinking about . . . stupid things.

Stacey. Christmas. Carole.

Fuck all that shite. She’s fuckin poisonous. A danger to herself and to other people. Well, I have news for her, and for Mister Toal, and for Mister Niddrie: you don’t fuck about with Bruce Robertson. Same rules apply. My methods are my methods are my methods.

You think the day cannae get any worse. Wrong! Things can always get worse, it seems as if they now can’t fucking improve. A social ratchet, that’s my life. What’s a ratchet? A wee bit bigger than a moose’s shit.

But it is getting worse Bruce, my sweet, sweet friend, because she’s here, waiting for us, here , outside the fucking station. – Bruce, she says, as we pretend not to see her and go to the car. That snakelike hiss of a voice. Broossssss . . .

Brooosssss

Let’s turn off the gassss Brooossss . . . no, that’s Chrisss-ie. Thisssss isss Shhhir-ley. Mind Ssstacey’s Jungle Book video. That sssnake that used tae sing, Trusssst in me . . . what wis that cunt’s name again? Sheer Khan? Naw, that wissss the fuckin tiger. That’s right, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right . . . Tiger Feet. Mud. Or Les Gray and Mud as they became.

– Hello Shirley. We cannot talk here. I shall see you in the pub on the corner in ten minutes.

– But Bruce . . . she says, her face twisting in that plea for clemency, but there can be no clemency, there is only the law which must be obeyed. The same goes for social laws, the ones we make in our daily interactions. She is trying to renegotiate the contract between us. The contract stipulates that there will be no fucking about with us in our private and personal life and this fuckin contract is being broken. No, no and no again!

Brooossss

– I repeat, we can- not talk here. Listen, because I’m not going to say this again, I kid you not. I’ll see you in the pub in ten minutes. My eyes glint in the sunlight which insipidly tries to negate the chill of a Scottish winter, blocking the hoor from my vision. I turn sharply away and out of the car park, stealing off down the road.

Ten minutes my arse, I can hear her following me, her creepy footsteps. I’m hoping nobody sees us. She doesn’t realise that she’s giving those cunts weapons to destroy me; cunts like Toal, Lennox, Gillman, Drummond and the like. Her presence in my company could, in the wrong hands, be a lethal weapon.