"Blakey on Tour - Part 13"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'But why the fuck wid yis dae that?'

I couldn't get Jock concentrating on the matter in hand, which were about him being the Highlander. All he seemed to give a shite about were his swede damage, which amounted to a minor scratch if you asks me. Alright, so the blood weren't stopping and a flap of skin and meat about an inch wide were hanging off, but he'd fucking survive, wouldn't he? And it weren't like I'd bust his skull nor nothing. I knowed I hadn't cos I could see a bit of it, glistening white and pinkish there behind the flap and not even a scratch on the fucker.

'I told you, Highlander, it were a fuckin' accident,' I says, pulling into the road. Jock's van handled quite well, actually. 'Every cunt has accidents from time to time, fuck sake. Not that I'm a cunt, mind. But I does have the odd accident, just like cunts.'

'I'm no on about mah heed, Royston. It's mah fuckin' troosers. Why are yis weering mah fuckin' troosers?'

I looked down at em and frowned. I gotta tell you, I weren't happy about it – they stank, had dried bits of fuck knows what all over em and the front were stiff as cardboard, liked he'd spunked in em and it had dried up, the dirty cunt. They was just about the worst strides I'd ever wore (except for some orange flares I used to have as a youngun), but Nathan had refused to serve us when I'd gone in with me nuts hanging out. It's them fucking new rules again.

'I thought you was dead,' I says, slipping into second up the Wall Road. I wanted to see if my hearse were still there. 'Dead uns don't need strides.'

'Well I'm no deed, ahm I?'

'Aye but you was.'

'Well ahm no.'

'Aye but... shite.'

I pulled up, encountering the back-markers of a jam. It were the same one from earlier, stretching not so far back now with maybe forty motors in it. Then it started moving. I looked up ahead and saw they had a roadblock set up and they was diverting vehicles into Carl Street. Beyond the roadblock you could see the high tail-end of my hearse, coppers crawling all over it and blue flashing lights hither and thither. Mostly thither. But I ain't mentioned the worst bit yet.

'What the... Royston, what are yis doin'?'

'They'm stoppin' everyone,' I says. 'I can't get involved.'

'But... for fuck's sake, Royston, ye cannae traverse the central reservation like that. The suspension cannae take it.'

'I knows what I'm doin', Jock. I drove a 2.8i Capri for years. Gold, she were, with a black vinyl roof. Fucking classic.'

'What the fuck's that got to dae wi' it?'

'Look, Jock, just fuckin' shut yer face a trust us, right?'

'I dinnae see why we cannae go through. The polis will no connect us with that hearse, if that's yer worry. Ah'll dae the talkin'.'

He were almost right about that suspension, as it turned out. I could hear it making awful noises as I rocked to and fro, trying to get some momentum to mount the kerb, which were fucking high. And when I finally achieved that I could hear it scraping fuck out of the undercarriage, which set me bollocks aquiver summat chronic. I mean, what if I got stuck here? The coppers'd stroll down at their leisure and have a good old gander, finding Highlander, a bunch of wooden stakes and summat else incriminating (although I couldn't recall what just then). But it were alright cos I got over in the end and scooted off down the other side, ignoring the blares of horns behind us as I glanced in the rear-view and clocked the belly plate falling off. 'You got shite clearance on this thing,' I says.

I got no answer from Jock, and when I looked over he were in a bit of a daze, stretching himself flat on the bench there. It were like as not for the best, I thought, swinging into Strake Hill and sparking a fag. I hadn't seen the film Highlander in a while, but I think they have to regenerate themselves when they gets injured, like Doctor Who. Give it five minutes and his forehead would be good as branny. I drove and smoked and thought about that, not knowing where I were going just then but confident that I were doing alright, that things was as good as they could be at the min. Maybe I'd head up to Hurk Wood and bathe him in a stream or summat. Then again, the water in them streams up there is all brown and full up of poisons and shite from dead sheep, so I hears.

Every now and then I'd glance over at Jock and see how his regeneration were coming along. It were going alright, actually, and you could see he were about halfway to sorted after three or four minutes. I tried staring for upwards of ten seconds at a time, seeing if I could catch the actual regeneration in progress, like one of them nature programs where they films a sheep rotting for a couple of weeks and then speeds it up. I could have fucking swore I seen the flap start to shift back into place, but I clipped a Mini coming the other way and had to swerve a bit, dislodging Jock from his regeneration bed. I also dislodged summat in me swede. It were the thing I'd not been able to recall just now.

The incriminating summat.

'Jock,' I says, pulling over. He were still fucking around on the floor, trying to get on his paws and knees. Looked a bit like an upturned tortoise and I wanted to have a laugh about that, but I wanted to take care of business more. 'Jock,' I yells, taking care of business.

'What, for fuck... wid yis give us a hand, here?'

'Where's the fuckin' corpse?'

'Corpse? What corpse?'

'You knows what corpse.' We was on the Barkettle Road, up by Beaver Lane. Weren't a good place to stop, this. Especially with the clipped Mini upside-down in someone's front lawn back the way a bit. No one were coming out of house nor motor yet though so we was alright. 'The fuckin' vampire corpse who were laid out right there. Where the fuckin' shite is he?'

'Oh, him? He turned tae dust, Royston, just like a told yis he would.'

'Like fuck did he – spill the fuckin' beans, Jock. I ain't having corpses going AWOL no more. I had that before and it's a fuckin' pain.'

'I swear to yis – the fuckin' thing turned tae—'

'Jock.'

'Alreet, alreet... a wee man came in and took him, when you wis in the pub.'

'A wee man? What fuckin' wee man?'

'He wis wearing a mask, Royston, but I believe it wis the fella who does the kebabs.'

'Alvin? You let Alvin take our fuckin' vampire corpse?'

'It wis the best thing, honest it wis. See, if the eradicated vampire disnae turn into dust for some unknown reason, there's only one sure-fire way to dispose of it. And do yis ken what? Alvin happened to be proposing that anyway. So I let him.'

Lights was switching on all over now and folks coming out, aiming to have a gawp at the poor fucker in the Mini, like as not. People can be bloodthirsty cunts at times, I fucking swear. Mind you, ambulance and coppers'd be there in a minute and I'd only get under their feet, so I pulled away and carried on northwards.

'You don't even have to say it,' I says, I couldn't bear to so much as look at Jock now. He were fucking mental, weren't he? How the fuck had I got meself tangled up with a mental Scottish bloke? I swear, the only thing stopping me from punting him out on the roadside were cos he were the Highlander, and there can only be one of em, annoying cunts though they can be. 'You don't have to say it cos I can guess it. I can read you like a fuckin' newspaper, Jock. Some random twat walks in and suggests doing summat or other with the dead un, and you goes along with it. You lets him get on with it cos it fits in with your fuckin' bollocks fantasy about vampires and shite.'

'I swear, Royston, that wis no what hap—'

'Alvin's gonna butcher him, ain't he?' I says, slotting her into fourth and crunching it a bit. She only had four gears and I weren't used to that. 'Alvin's gonna turn our fuckin' corpse into kebabs, ain't he?'

I could feel Jock looking at us like I were the mental one instead of him.

Just relax, Blakey. Calm down and try not to kick his fucking teeth in.

There can be only one.

Actually he did have only one tooth, I think.

'Kebabs? No... for fuck sake, Royston, that's barbaric. And it might carry a risk of infecting the entire populace via his kebabs.'

'Eh? But...'

'No, he only wants tae burn it.'

'Alvin wants to burn our corpse?'

'Aye. Said he'd dae it aroond here, actually, up in Hurk Wood. In fact, what's that through them trees there? Is that a fire?'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)