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– Exactly. The fact that you’re here shows it has priority, she snootily retorts.

– Precisely. Conversely, the fact that we are not out there investigating the murder of a young man shows that that does not have priority.

– Hear hear! shouts Dougie Gillman. Nasty piece of work Dougie, but a brilliant interrogator. One of the few cunts on the force who would make a formidable opponent. Just as well he’s not thrown his hat into the ring for the inspector’s post. He respects the craft hierarchy.

– And so say all of us, Gus barks.

These spastics are not fucking well getting it their own way the day, that’s as sure as the shite on your shoe. By the end of the day they look as bedraggled as a couple of hoors off the backshift, I kid you not.

At the end of the course I note that Ray Lennox is enjoying a bit of banter with Gus. These cunts seem as right as fuck. That’ll be sorted right out though.

I’m thinking again about the promo stakes on my way downstairs. It’s not a fucking particularly strong field.

GUS BAIN    Too auld and stupid.            KEN ARNOTT    From B division. A straight-down-the-line dull nae-mates-outside-the-force-and-craft polisman. A serious threat if he had half a brain.            PETER INGLIS    No wonder he’s crawling up my arse when he’s had the audacity to put in for this post. A loser. Something fucking queer aboot that sad loner.

I get to my desk and there’s a message saying that a woman was trying to get me, she didn’t leave her name. It’ll be Carole, nothing surer. Seeing the error of her ways. Getting a bit weepy on her own with Christmas approaching. That is her problem. I have to head off and see the quack. I’ve an appointment.

I drive out across the city. These cunts have changed the one-way system tae confuse you even further. Trying tae drive from one side of the toon tae the other with aw this Denis Law lying is a fucking joke. If it was up tae me I’d ban all these buses and chop off most of these silly gairdins and get a few fucking new lanes doon Princes Street.

At Dr Rossi’s surgery I’m kept waiting for twelve minutes. I am here at 5.25 for my 5.30 appointment, but it is 5.42 by the time I get seen, probably thanks to some dopey auld cow who smells stale and just wants to waste stamp-payers’ money by talking all day to a doctor, the only person who will come near her on account of the whiff coming fae the cunt.

It’s okay you fuckin mingin auld bastard, it’s only a fuckin murder investigation I’m on. Carry on, carry on, don’t mind me.

When I get in, Rossi makes no apology for keeping me late. Instead he asks me to drop my keks.

– Well Mr Robertson, Rossi says, inspecting my testicles and my inner thighs, – this looks like eczema.

– Eczema! But here . . . I mean, people get eczema on their back, or arms or face . . . but no there . . .

Rossi’s eyes widen balefully, and a flicker of distaste is evident in them. – Eczema can occur anywhere. There’s no evidence to suggest that you might have something additional, certainly it’s not an STD.

There’s me fucking well disintegrating here and this cunt’s just passing it off like it was nowt . . .– I’ve never had this before. Even when I . . . I mean, I’ve just never had this before.

– Were your parents prone to it? It can be hereditary.

– No . . .

Parents fuck off parents fuck off

– It’s some aggravated skin disorder, probably a form of eczema. I can’t emphasise strongly enough that you should keep that area clean. I’m going to prescribe a cream.

I take a deep breath and let the sterile air of Rossi’s surgery fill my lungs. I try to remain focused on Rossi without making eye contact. Look at the brows, that’s an old con’s trick: focus on the polisman’s eyebrows rather than his pupils. Haul in a Fyfe a Begbie a McPhee a Wylie or a Doyle and those criminal cunts always adopt the same approach. Eye contact without eye contact. Always fucks the baby polis up, that one. Just formulating a strategy, getting back into the notion of the games feels somewhat empowering and I enquire crisply of Rossi: – What’s brought this on?

Rossi’s climbing down a bit. His tone’s less haughty now. After all, it’s just two professional men chatting together in a diagnostic mode. Identify problem and suggest possible solutions. – Well, you may be allergic to a certain foodstuff. It may be part of the stress and anxiety-related condition you’ve been experiencing.

Stress. That figures. The fuckin job. Toal’s caused this! He’s fucked Busby and he thinks he’ll fuck me. Wrong!

I take Rossi’s creams and head away hame. Home is not a good place for me, it never was. I prefer to work all the overtime I can. People like Gus, they lap up the OT. They get in the habit during the summer so that they can accrue as much time to get on the gowf during the day when the links are clear. Me, I can only sleep during the day. I like to keep busy at night. I head home and have a quiet evening in wanking to some of Hector The Farmer’s videos. I take a glance at the Evening News. There’s an article by a spastic who’s their so-called ‘Chief Crime Reporter’ which seems to just offer a sounding board for any bitter coon lover to criticise the service. Then I head out to Jammy Joe’s disco: a chance to combine business with pleasure. It’s a bugger to get parked in the town and I shouldn’t have taken the motor. Still, I’m going to stay quite sober, I just want to fire into some game tart and take her hame and fuck her until I feel tired enough to get some zeds in.

That Mark Wilson boy is on the door, and the smart cunt’s nervously checking me out. Yes, I’m almost positive that cunt used to run with the CCS back in his day. If that’s the case, he’s bound

again. If last night was about emptying the bag, tonight, thank fuck, is Lodge night. The masons is the only place that you can go to meet cunts that arenae polis. It’s different up here tae down in England. There are, of course, some fat cats and professional types, like down south, but in the Lodges up here it’s mainly tradesmen. It’s like the gowf: in Scotland you have schemie gowf clubs like Silverknowes. Just you try bein a fuckin tradesman and joinin a golf club in England though.

I personally think that aprons are for silly wee lassies to wear in the kitchen and no for grown men on a night out. The ritualism of the Lodge has its uses however; it’s made me far more sexually inventive. This helps with the games.

I make myself some toast on the grill, but I burn the first lot and have to try again. I open the back door to let out the smell. Outside in the back garden I see that Stacey’s bike hasnae been put intae the shed. It’ll rust tae fuck. I stick it inside and then go to the bottom of the garden on the pretext of pottering, but I want to get a good nose into Stronach’s hoose. He’ll be at training today, and I could do with a sketch of his bird, see what that wee cow’s up tae. She doesnae seem tae be at hame though and it’s nippy out here.

The second batch of toast is fine. It’s midday and I fill in my overtime from last night at Jammy Joe’s on the OTA 1–7 form and head up to HQ in the Volvo accompanied by a tape of Iron Maiden’s self-titled debut album, the offering where Paul Di Anno rather than Bruce Dickinson is at the mic.

The recent snows have frozen over. Of course, this means chaos on the roads with the highway cunts unable to cope. As if they werenae used to bad weather. There’s a bottleneck stretching from Colinton to fuckin Aberdeen or the likes. THIS HAPPENS EVERY FUCKIN YEAR. I feel like getting out of the car and choking the living shit out of any spastic whose face offends me, which in this case is just about every cunt. Fuckin police force here . . .

Fuckin emergency services

Cunts

I’ll fuckin

I park the car outside the shops before Napier College. It’s a so-called university now, but every cunt knows it still as Napier College. The punters know a real uni when they see it and this fuckin place for trainee basket-weavers in no way fits the bill. Same rules. There’s a decent bakery here and I radio in and tell them that the traffic’s scandalous and I’ll see them when I do.