He had barely straightened his back after getting out, when the security team chief came marching up to him. The man, in his late twenties, wore an immaculate black uniform with a peaked cap. There was something about his bearing which made me think that sixty years earlier he would have fitted well into a similar suit with SS flashes on its lapels.
‘The arena is clear, sir,’ he said. ‘Cleared and secured. We put sniffer dogs in, the lot.’
Everett glanced at his watch. ‘That’s good. We open the doors to the public in fifteen minutes; that gives my road crew time to load the special effects flares. From opening to the start of the show, the only people from my staff allowed inside the main arena are those with these orange badges.’ He waved a plastic photographic pass at the man. ‘That’s the television people, the match commentators, road crew, Oz, here, and me.’
‘Yes sir, I was aware of that and my men are all briefed accordingly.’ He glanced at Dylan. ‘What about this gentleman, sir?’
Mike produced his warrant card and held it up. ‘This is my floor pass,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m the fuckin’ polis, son. I go where I like; so do my sergeant and my detective constable. They should be at the main entrance right now.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the security man snapped.
‘Okay,’ Everett boomed. ‘Let’s go with that.’ He turned and looked over my shoulder, and the GWA troupe who were disembarking from the transfer bus.
‘Gary,’ he called across to the foreman roadie. ‘The hall’s secure; you can load those whiz-bangs now. Make sure you tell Alex Kruger when they’re in place, so he doesn’t go pressing any buttons on his console.’
He turned back to me. ‘Oz, do me a favour, will you. We’ve got a hospitality room designated for special guests; they’re a couple of local radio disc jockeys who’ve been plugging the show for weeks, plus a couple of old Scottish rugby stars, and the managers and captains of the Hearts and Hibs football sides.
‘Barbara’s setting it up now. Could you go and make sure everything’s okay, and be there to greet guests, just in case they arrive early. Diane and I will join you there, just as soon as I’ve had a chance to give a final pep-talk to the wrestlers.’
I nodded. ‘Sure I will. But with Hearts and Hibs both coming, don’t you need two hospitality rooms?’
I was in the main entrance area, about to open a door labelled ‘GWA guests’ when my mobile phone rang. I took it out, puzzled. ‘Yup?’
‘Oz? It’s me.’ Primavera.
‘It’s your big night, isn’t it? I just thought I’d give you a ring to wish you luck . . . and to see how you’re doing; how you’re coping.’
I couldn’t help it; my hackles rose of their own accord. ‘Prim, my dear, I can say this to you because I know you’ll understand, but over the last few weeks I have grown to hate the word “coping”. People who ask me that mean well, but, I don’t know, it just makes me feel demeaned. Somehow, they make it sound as if I’m having to learn to wipe my own arse.’ I paused, sorry now for having let go. ‘Or am I being hypersensitive?’ I said in a doomed attempt to turn my irritation into humour.
‘Maybe you are,’ she said. ‘But you’re entitled. I’ve never thought about that word before; it’s just a term you use.’
‘Yes, flower. Until it’s used at you.’
‘Of course.’ I heard her draw a breath. ‘Listen, I’ve obviously called at a bad time. In fact I shouldn’t have called at all. Good luck tonight. ’Bye now.’
‘No, Prim,’ I called into the phone. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.’ But she was gone.
I did my best with the dee-jays, the footballers, and the blown-up ex-rugby stars, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had snubbed Prim, who was, after all my best pal, and I felt rotten about it. I was glad when Everett and Diane - not in her ring gear - arrived to relieve me, and I could use the excuse of slipping off to smarten myself up for the cameras.
Once I had done that I went out to the arena floor, using my orange pass, to do a sound check on my hand-mike, and to check that my table was in position. I had just said hello to the English language commentators, when Mike tapped me on the shoulder.
‘We forgot one thing,’ he said. ‘Or you did. This thing’s a sell-out and I haven’t got a seat.’
‘Not a problem,’ I told him. I looked around until I saw Gary O’Rourke on the other side of the ring. I waved to him, and he came running round. ‘Gaz, can you get one of the lads to put another folding chair at my table? DI Dylan needs somewhere to sit.’
‘Aye, Ah’ll do that no bother,’ he answered willingly, glancing at the detective. ‘Ah’ll get one masel’. Here,’ he added, grinning, ‘what d’ye think of thae boys in the uniforms, Oz, eh? We should have them wi’ us every week. Whether they’re any use or not, they fair smarten the place up.’
Still smiling to himself, he bustled off to find the additional chair. ‘Don’t worry if the camera hits on you where you’ll be sitting, Mike,’ I said, as he left. ‘Just act as if it wasn’t there. Look out for stray wrestlers though. Quite often the action leaves the ring and spills over onto the surround. If you see one of these guys flying towards you - duck.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind . . . unless it’s one of the women, of course. Now I must make sure that the guys on the door know where I am, for when that biker shows up.’
Wondering what would be left of him if he was hit by one of the meaty GWA ladies, I watched him as he made his way along the aisle to the entrance, through the mounting excitement of the crowd. The arena was full; full of people in tee-shirts, waving banners, showing off GWA merchandise for the cameras which were circling the arena filming stock colour footage for use on future promos and broadcasts. It was ten minutes till show time.
Dylan was back from his errand and in his seat when the lights dimmed. The noise in the hall was stilled. Until the opening sequence began, when it simply exploded. The lights whirled, the lasers cut the gloom, the yellow stars shone, the music roared out and the wire-borne flares rushed and crashed into the floor by the superstars’ entrance. I held my breath, waiting in spite of myself for some unknown and unimagined disaster. But finally the spotlight was on me, Oz Blackstone, up there in the ring, on live television. The words, ‘On with the motley,’ flashed through my mind. Then I raised my mike.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, GWA fans all over Europe, welcome to Ingliston, Edinburgh, and welcome to BattleGround Special!’
As instructed, I allowed twenty seconds for the boom cameras to swing round the cheering, waving crowd, then called out my intro for the first match, which featured the newly imported Japanese tag team.
I was aware of Dylan staring at me as I slipped quietly into my seat. ‘Here,’ he said in a hoarse, astonished, and not unimpressed whisper, ‘you’re not bad at that.’
The show was spectacular - the best, I knew: but for every minute that it stretched out I was tense; through every introduction I grew more and more scared. Yet to spite my fears, everything came off flawlessly.
The Japanese tagsters were the most acrobatic team I had ever seen. Big Al the Cyclops looked awesome as he pounded the daylights out of poor old Max Schwartz. The Princess all but stopped the show, and a hundred thousand male pulses across Europe, as she swung down the aisle ahead of the Black Angel of Death.Yet Darius made everyone forget her . . . almost . . . as he put on a terrific acrobatic battle with Johnny ‘Salvatore’ King, finishing with an aerial move which he had developed specially for the occasion.
We were within a few minutes of the penultimate match, Sally Crockett against The Heckler, when the police biker arrived. I found myself hoping that he wasn’t in shot as he stepped up to Dylan and handed him a thick brown package. Mike took it from him without a word of acknowledgement and tore it open.
‘Fuck,’ he swore quietly as he looked at the report. ‘This hasn’t been filtered at all. Christ knows how long it’ll take to go through it.’
‘Don’t worry too
much about it,’ I told him. ‘We’re more than halfway through the show and everything’s been fine.’
‘Still,’ I heard him say to himself, as I rose to declare the Choirboys the winners of their tag team title defence. ‘It’s got to be . . .’
Sally Crockett looked terrific as she vaulted into the ring. The crowd thought so too; even without the sexy uniform she drew an even bigger pop than Diane, second only to the Angel. She looked terrific as she swung into action against The Heckler. The guy was a fair light-heavyweight wrestler . . . I had seen him fight behind a mask in earlier shows . . . but Sally had too much for him in every respect. Their mixed gender match could have looked phoney and too obviously staged, but it didn’t, because as I had realised when I saw them rehearse, Sally had insisted that her opponent didn’t hold back on her.
She took some genuine thumps up there in the ring, but shook them all off, to counter with a series of drop-kicks and powerful leg throws. Finally, she locked her man in an unbreakable submission hold. Theatrically, amid the screams of the crowd, the referee waved to the timekeeper, who rang the bell.
I didn’t have to jump up into the ring to announce the results. So I simply stood to call out, ‘And the winner of this bout by submission, the GWA World Ladies’ Champion, Miss Sally Crockett!’ As I shouted into my mike, I felt its namesake tugging at my arm.
‘What the hell is it?’ I snapped as I sat down, annoyed by his interference. Dylan didn’t reply; instead he stared at me, bug-eyed and speechless, and shoved a page under my nose, pointing, jabbing at it. I snapped back to reality and looked at the sheet. It was a one-page report. I read it quickly.
Arrested in Glasgow in connection with possible third party involvement in a shooting. Released. Case dropped by Crown Office for lack of evidence.
Background history. Age thirty-three, born Glasgow. Educated, Shawlands Academy. Completed vocational training in Royal Army Medical Corps, before transferring to special forces. Specialised training in firearms and in all forms of sabotage, including explosives.
It was only then that I looked at the name at the top of the page. ‘Gary O’Rourke,’ I gasped, my eyes now as wide as Dylan’s.
‘What’s his job here?’ Mike asked.
I didn’t answer him; instead my mind swam through treacle to reach the obvious. I was aware that Liam’s music had started, that he was already at the foot of the ramp, about to vault into the ring, where I should have been ready to introduce him. I didn’t give a damn, as I mouthed the word, ‘explosives’.
I thrust the page back at Dylan and dropped my hand-mike on the table, then turned and ran round the ring. I used to be pretty quick on my feet, but I hadn’t done much sprinting since I had left Edinburgh going on for a year before. Still, I felt my shoes almost dig into the concrete floor of the arena as I took the corner into the long aisle which led to the back of the hall and the television control towers.
I sensed, rather than saw, the dimming of the light. I was barely aware of the start of Daze’s music. But I knew where he was. Without looking I saw, pace by huge pace, his march down the ramp, towards the ring where Liam was waiting. My lungs were bursting as I reached the foot of Alex Kruger’s tower. I caught sight of him up there, poised over his console, his eyes shining. The crowd noise was so great that my loudest bellow would never have reached him . . . even if he hadn’t been wearing headphones.
There was a ladder at the side of the scaffolding, up to his perch. I grabbed it, at first almost pulling it backwards on top of me, then steadying it and finding a footing. I tried to run up it, but my shoe slipped at once, making me bang my forehead into a rung. Scrabbling at it, I gained momentum at last, and pushed and hauled my way up as fast as I could.
A change in the sound of the crowd told me that Daze was stepping over the ropes and into the ring. I knew what would happen next.
I had reached the top of the ladder. I threw myself on the floor of the cage. The little Belgian was standing, over the console, both thumbs raised, looking like my nephew Jonathan at his PlayStation.
‘Alex,’ I screamed at him. ‘Don’t fire those flares!’
Chapter 55
They told me later that the headline match between Daze and Liam was one of the finest technical displays ever seen on pay-per-view television. They told me that it alone would have made the whole show value for money, never mind any of the earlier great performances that I had seen.
They told me that Liam Matthews placed himself unshakeably on the top tier of wrestling superstardom by the way in which he attacked an opponent at least a foot taller than he was, almost wearing down the giant until he made his one fatal mistake, delivering himself into Daze’s Spear, the most awesome finishing move in wrestling history.
They had to tell me this afterwards, for all through the bout I lay sprawled on the floor of Alex Kruger’s booth, gasping for the breath to explain to the FX operator that the flares on the ring posts might have been booby-trapped. All the time he stared at me like I was nuts, openly resentful that I had ruined his big moment.
All the sounds of the action floated up to me, until finally, I heard the single sustained roar which told me that it was over. Then the breathless, but still booming, voice of Daze filled the hall. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, wrestling fans everywhere; thank you for being with us for this BattleGround Special. Till Saturday, in Frankfurt, Germany, from Ingliston, Edinburgh, goodbye.’
I gulped, a touch fearfully now that the panic was over. That should have been my announcement. I climbed off the floor of the booth and stood, looking at the crowd below as the hall emptied. Everett and Liam were still in the ring; it was full of youngsters and they were signing autographs.
I yelled at the big man, but he couldn’t hear me above the continuing babble, and the taped walk-out music which was still playing. I waved frantically until at last I caught his eye. He shot me a huge questioning frown. I tried to work out a gesture which meant, ‘Clear the ring, for fuck’s sake.’ I couldn’t, so I yelled my message, as loud as I could.
I couldn’t tell at first whether he had understood, until he raised his mike again and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the GWA superstars will all be happy to sign more autographs for you outside, but meantime we have to ask you to clear the hall as fast as you can, so that we can strike the ring.’
Telling Alex to follow me, I climbed down from the tower, and pushed my way through the departing audience. ‘What the hell’s up, Oz?’ Everett asked as I reached him. ‘What happened to my flares?’ he barked at Alex.
‘I want them examined,’ I told him. ‘But very carefully. If I’m wrong, fire me, but until then, stick with me. Alex, can you dismantle these installations?’
‘Of course I can,’ said the Belgian, and set to work. Laboriously he stripped off the black insulating tape which secured the flare canister nearest to his tower, and lifted it into the centre of the ring. Carefully he reached into it and lifted out something looking like a large firework; which it was.
‘It’s okay,’ he announced. He moved on to the next corner and repeated the process. ‘All right again.’ And the third.
My heart was in my boots as he removed the fourth and last canister. I was beginning to feel like the biggest idiot in Edinburgh . . . well, the second biggest, after Dylan. My heart resumed its normal position in my chest as Alex recoiled from the container.
‘Tschaaah!’ he gasped.
‘What is it?’ asked Everett.
‘This one’s loaded with gelignite,’ the technician replied.
‘How much of the stuff?’ the big man ground out, eyes narrow. Standing beside him, I felt myself begin to tremble. Standing on his other side, I saw Dylan’s face quiver.
‘From the weight of it, enough to blow you, big as you are, clear out of the ring, and probably to kill Mr Matthews if he’d been close to the thing when it went off. Enough to do serious damage to the commentators, the timekeeper and the people at the announcer’s table. Enough t
o injure the spectators nearest to the ring.’
As Mike sagged, I noticed that he was still holding the report on Gary O’Rourke. I reached over and took it from him and handed it to Everett. ‘Guess what the PNC check showed,’ I said.
As he finished reading the page he crumpled it in his huge hand. ‘Gonna find the son of a bitch,’ he growled.
But Dylan had recovered himself. ‘No, sir. This is a police matter now. We’ll find him.’ He turned to his two colleagues who were standing at the side of the ring, together with the stiff-suited security chief.
‘The man’s name is Gary O’Rourke, road crew foreman. Find him and arrest him.’
The security man raised a hand. ‘Is he the fair-haired chap, by any chance? Glasgow accent, powerfully built?’
‘That’s the man,’ I confirmed.
‘He left during the last bout. I was checking outside and saw him come out from the staff door, carrying a motor cycle helmet. Just after that I saw a bike ridden out of the car park.’
‘Magic,’ Dylan groaned. ‘I should have lifted him as soon as you tore off to that tower, Oz.’
I looked at him, feeling sorry for him once again. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t, Mike.’
Chapter 56
Naturally, Dylan circulated a description of O’Rourke’s motor cycle, together with its registration number, which the national computer system spat out a lot more quickly than it had volunteered his curriculum vitae.
Just as naturally, there was no trace of him.
‘Bastard’s disappeared,’ Dylan grumbled as he came back into my flat just before noon, after picking up Susie’s photocopies from her place before she left for work, and checking into his office to file his report on the night before.
‘He had more than an hour before the stop order went out. That’s plenty of time to get under cover. Christ, on that bike of his he could have been well into England by then.’
Wearing Purple (Oz Blackstone Mystery) Page 27