The Silver Arrow (43 page)

  “Johnboy…Johnboy.”

  “And now before we head up to the half hour, here’s another fab song from your all-time favourite radio, another American classic from Highway 61 Revisited, it’s Mr Bob Dylan with ‘It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Lot To Cry’…take it away, Bob.”

  “Oh my Jeezuss fucking God!”

  “Fur Christ sake!  Quick, somewan call fur an ambulance fur Fanny!” he heard an echoing, familiar voice shout, jist before a shadow appeared tae block oot the light above him.

  “Johnboy, ur ye there?”

The voice sounded tinny…as if it wis a good bit away.  Another voice, this time definitely female, and much closer tae haun shouted, or wis it a scream, Johnboy wondered?  The voice sounded familiar.  He wondered if it wis his ma, bit dismissed that as he wis sure that she’d died a few years ago.  He wondered if it wis Senga, turning his face away fae the screaming female’s voice behind the shadow.  It wis the other voice that he wanted tae hear, the wan fae away somewhere in the distance.

  “Johnboy?”

  Aye, that wan…that’s the wan.  He tried tae open they eyes ae his, bit there wis stuff in his eyes…watery liquid stinging stuff. He managed tae draw his fingers across them. There wis something swinging aboot fae side tae side in front ae his eyes.

“Hello?  Hello?  Johnboy?  Is that you?  Ur ye there?  Kin ye hear me?” Senga shouted fae the swinging moothpiece.

  “Skull…is that you?” Johnboy mumbled, surprised, feeling quite happy wae himsel, wondering where the baldy son ae Mr Magoo hid gotten tae, as The Chief, Baker The Basturt, pushed his way through the screws staunin looking doon at the YO, no sure whit tae dae and clearly no wanting tae get blood oan their uniforms.

  “Staun aside, Mr Dong,” The Chief snarled, lifting his baton up in an arc towards the ceiling.

  “No, Chief…Johnboy!” Fanny screamed as he brought it doon oan tap ae Johnboy’s heid wae aw the force he could muster.

  “
Good evening.  My name is John Turney and these are the news headlines in Scotland tonight.

  A community is in mourning tonight after police confirmed that the body of a young girl found hidden behind a false partition in a Ministry of Defence civil defence store is that of fourteen-year-old Ann Brown, who went missing in November nineteen seventy two.  The schoolgirl’s body was discovered by a night watchman in the early hours of this morning.  As locals from the nearby village of Cambusbarron gathered at the gates of the old mill, questions were being asked as to why it had taken so long to discover the whereabouts of Ann Brown.  Police Superintendent, Tom Barron, who was the detective inspector in charge of the investigation at the time that the girl went missing, refused to comment this afternoon, but confirmed that the mill had been searched twice during the initial investigation.  Superintendent Barron stated that all officers involved in the investigation are devastated, but hoped the discovery would bring closure to Ann Brown’s distraught parents.  A local youth, Robert Connor, who was eighteen at the time of her disappearance, and sentenced to life for the murder, despite Ann Brown’s body having never being found, was granted leave to appeal his conviction and was due to attend an appeal hearing before three law lords in the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday.  The local MP, Neville Graham-Worthington said that…

  Glasgow’s Assistant Chief Constable, Jack Tipple, is facing calls to resign tonight after extraordinary scenes outside Glasgow Sheriff Court this afternoon after Lord Bingham, in the Court of Session in Edinburgh this morning, sensationally ordered a young man, twenty-year-old John Taylor, to be released from a young offender’s institution immediately, from where he is serving fourteen years.  Taylor was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed on a teenager, after being found guilty of shooting two police officers in a bank raid in Maryhill on the 9
th
of November, nineteen seventy two.  Tonight, politicians on both sides of the political divide were calling on the Secretary of State to order a public enquiry into police corruption and the role the procurator fiscal’s service played in keeping the youth in custody, despite overwhelming evidence that he was innocent.  Before Stuart McKenzie, Taylor’s Queen’s Counsel, had a chance to argue his case for fresh evidence to be accepted, proving his client’s innocence, Alan Small, Queen’s Counsel for The Crown, informed Lord Bingham that The Crown would not be challenging the new evidence put forward by the defence.  This was despite a hearing scheduled later in the day at Glasgow Sheriff Court, in front of Sheriff Clifford Burns, to decide on whether that same evidence could be accessed by Taylors defence team.  The news team can sensationally confirm that Sheriff Burns was about to rule on Taylor’s behalf for access to a serving Glasgow police inspectors’ pocket service notebook, in order for it to be used as part of the evidence in the appeal.  Taylor’s solicitor, Mr Graham Portoy, along with the Free Johnboy Taylor spokeswoman, Michelle Hope, daughter of a serving police officer, was informed that the hearing was cancelled due to the decision made earlier in Edinburgh.  The fresh evidence, which has been the subject of a major campaign by Michelle Hope and high profile supporters, including MPs and stars of stage and screen, centres on a small operational pocket notebook belonging to a serving police inspector and is said to contain revelations of police corruption, including perverting the course of justice and the torture of witnesses in serious crimes, including murder.

  In a further twist to the events at Edinburgh High Court and Glasgow Sheriff Court, we can reveal that Police Superintendent Daddy Jackson, responsible for policing in the north of the city, has been suspended from duty whilst a serving police inspector and a police sergeant were arrested in dawn raids at their homes early this morning by officers outwith the Glasgow force.  John Taylor’s counsel said today that it was the first time that he had known The Crown never to challenge evidence in such a serious miscarriage of justice and echoed the call for a public enquiry.

  The Glasgow Echo has issued a statement tonight through its crime editor, Sammy Elliot, stating that the newspaper will be serialising the full facts of the story behind the case, using what it claims to be the full contents of the police inspector’s pocket notebook…

David Broderick, head of The Procurator Fiscal’s Service in Glasgow has announced his early retirement.  In other changes within the service, Glenda Metcalfe, one of Glasgow’s brightest and prettiest young procurator fiscals has been promoted to manage the procurator fiscal staff in the city’s district police courts.  Whilst Miss Metcalfe said she was delighted at the promotion this afternoon, experts within legal circles were saying tonight that the move is a backward step and is viewed as the graveyard for anyone wishing to propel themselves forward in the cut and thrust of the city’s High and Sheriff Courts.  The Procurator Service denied that the sideways move had anything to do with the John Taylor appeal fiasco, given that Miss Metcalfe lead The Crown case to thwart the defence from gaining access to the police inspector’s service notebook…

In other news tonight, a twenty-year-old young offender prisoner has died and another is critically ill in hospital, after a female member of staff, believed to be a social worker in Dumfries Young Offenders Institution, was taken hostage by two inmates, just before lunchtime this afternoon.  The female social worker, who hasn’t been named, is currently in hospital, recovering from her ordeal, although it’s not thought her injuries are life-threatening.  Prison officials said that the injured inmate has been transferred, under armed guard from Dumfries Royal Infirmary to Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary for emergency lifesaving surgery…

  One of Glasgow’s best known and colourful entrepreneurs, Honest John McCaffrey, who built up an empire, supplying Glasgow’s housewives with everything from cookers to pots and pans was gunned down and killed in Woodlands Road this afternoon.  It is thought that Mr McCaffrey died instantly whilst sitting in his stationary Rolls Royce.  Shocked and distressed witnesses, none of whom wished to be identified, said a pillion passenger on a motorcycle walked up to Mr McCaffrey and shot him in the head at point blank range.  Mr McCaffrey’s wife and grown up children were all said to be devastated by the killing, describing Mr McCaffrey as larger than life and a loving family man.  Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident and are asking for anyone with information to contact …

  The news team can exclusively reveal that the clinical psychiatrist suspended after being arrested at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary this morning is Doctor Rory Brand.  Thirty-three-year-old Doctor Brand has been charged with serious sexual assaults on vulnerable female patients going back to the 1960s.  An unnamed source at the hospital today claimed that the sexual assaults involved hundreds of patients.  Strathclyde Police said this afternoon that the arrest of a doctor at The Royal Infirmary, was as a result of painstaking investigative police work over a number of months.  The spokesman also confirmed that a thirty-three-year-old man will appear at Glasgow Sheriff Court in the morning…

  One of Glasgow’s most well-known and loved businessmen, Jonathan ‘Papa’ Fraser, was killed in an accident this lunchtime, as he made his way down West Nile Street from his jewellery shop to The Horseshoe Bar in Drury Lane.  Mr Fraser was killed as a roll of carpet was being hoisted into a first floor office window on West Nile Street by two carpet layers, employed by Carpet Capers Warehouse in the Cowcaddens.  One of the employees, a young apprentice carpet fitter, was taken to hospital suffering from shock, but was allowed home later.  Police said that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the accident, although a report will be sent to the procurator fiscal at a later date…

  Oh…I’ve just been told that we can go over to Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary where our crime reporter, Finlay Redemption, is on the public telephone from across in The City Café on Castle Street.

  “Finlay, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, John, loud and clear.”

  “So, what’s the latest on the hostage story concerning the pretty female social worker taken hostage down in Dumfries this lunchtime?”

  “Well, John, I can tell you that the young, married social worker, Mrs Fanny Flaw, was taken hostage by two violent inmates.  Although the actual circumstances surrounding the incident are still vague, I can report that whilst one of the young offenders died at the scene, another has just arrived by ambulance, under heavy police escort, their vehicles’ blue lights flashing.  Whilst we don’t have a name for either of the two long-term prisoners, we can say tonight that the prisoner, who has in the past few moments, just been whisked into casualty, has life-threatening injuries.  I’ve just been handed a note that says that an official at The Scottish Home and Health Department in Edinburgh, Mr Thomas Peacock, has just named the dead prisoner as twenty-year-old…”

  “Hello, Finlay?  Hello?  Are you still there, Finlay?  I apologise for that, but we seem to have lost the connection with our crime reporter, Findlay Redemption, from opposite Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary.  If we get Finlay back on the line with an update before the end of the programme, we will… 

  And finally, another sensational turn of events today.  Whatever happened to The Silver Arrow?  That’s been the question on everyone’s lips since that infamous night on Saturday 7
th
of December last year, when he caused chaos and police car pile-ups all over the city, as he sped through The West End and the city centre, leaving those in hot pursuit in his wake.  After eleven months of no street activity by the powerful, classic 1930s Mercedes-Benz W125 sports car, Superintendent John Bower, Head of the city’s Traffic Division has been sensationally suspended and is under investigation after detectives believe they have found what appears to be the main sub frame and various parts belonging to the car in Superintendent Bower’s lock-up garage, in his remote detached cottage, near Lenzie.  Viewers will recall that no trace of the mystery driver, or the car for that matter, has been seen since that evening.  Although there have been plenty of speculation as to the reason behind the sudden disappearance of the vehicle from the streets, police and psychologists have remained baffled ever since.  Superintendent John Bower’s family refused to comment today other than to confirm that detectives arrived at the family home in the early hours of the morning after an anonymous tip-off.  The family spokesman also denied that Superintendent Bowers nor any of his sons had any knowledge as to why parts from the notorious vehicle had been found in the family garage…”