set in 1990s Edinburgh in an alternative universe where uncanny powers might be starting to exist
| characters: Susan Phillips, Bob Fudge, Drongo (James Bell), Jane Stuart, John Huang, Charles Reynauld, Martin Farmer, John Cassidy events: 1/8/90, 2/8/90, 4/8/90, 14/8/90, 18/8/90, 21/8/90, 29/8/90, 3/10/90, 6/10/90, 7/11/90, 13/11/90, 21/11/90, 28/11/90, 4/12/90, 13/12/90, 18/12/90, 10/1/91, 18/2/91, 30/4/91, 14/6/91, 23/6/91 |
transcript of interview with Drongo - 31/08/90
Jane's letter to the Fate Club Management
Drongo's postcard to his mother from Moscow
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| Wednesday 1/8/90 8:00 - tickets for Fringe: Black Flag, Anarchists Picnic, Shirley Valentine. 9:07 - call from Drongo. Explosion at Speigeltent. 6 injured. 0 dead. Police say gas cylinder, Drongo says bits tin and electronics in debris. Bomb? have pictures inside and outside tent 10:59 - FIST (Fighters for an Independent Scottish Territory) claim responsibility for bomb. Nationalist agenda. Bob not heard of FIST. check with SNP and other Nationalist groups. 11:03 - called hospital. All injured doing fine. Will live 11.40 - Nobody heard of FIST. New group. 12:00 - D-Notice on story. [expletive deleted] can print but not mention cause of explosion. 13:55 - gunshots in Charlotte Square. Secretary of State for Scotland startled by them. have pictures. Bob likes picture of Secretary's expression. 14:00 - Lunch - Lady Fiona - she says: - Hon. Herbert W seen with Lady B at Darcy's. - Miss M has lost her fiance [more gossip - cut for brevity] - Alexander Stewart after a title. check background. Yank. 19:00 - Bob getting nowhere with secretary, as usual. Should I tell him that her boyfriend is a boxer??? SSS Office says shots were blanks - media stunt by performance artist. no mention of artist's name. must check. |
| Thursday 2/8/90 6:15 - front page - Iraq invades Quwait (?? - need to check spelling). My story now page 7. [expletive deleted] - but did get byline! 8:00 - tickets for Fringe: Rosenkrantz and Guilderstein are Dead, Life After Man, Rose Red 15:00 - no leads on FIST. Still nothing on who fired blanks in Charlotte Square. Odd 19:45 - Alex Stewart, donates to Gaelic language, AIDS charities, museums, etc. computer multi-millionaire. Bit reticent. No itinerary. filed story for Hello. Friday 3/8/90 8:00 - tickets for Fringe: Women on the Edge, Honkin' Hepcats, Life and Times of Gandhi 10:00 - press conference. Secretary of State for Scotland D-Notice lifted. opera singer murdered. Italian, no connection with Scottish Nationalism. In hotel bathroom. Blood drained. Ick!! can report bomb at Speigeltent. SSS probably lying about gunshots - not blanks? 11.15 - persuaded Daily Record to run a "name that performance artist" piece, see if any witnessed from Charlotte Square come forward. Official angle is that it was a publicity stunt not an assassination attempt - so police can't object if we pay witnesses. |
| Saturday 4/8/90 8:00 - tickets for Kenny and the Eggplants, Shakespeare for Breakfast. 13:20 - filed preliminary interviews for Fringe Sunday shows, should run tomorrow, with luck. Sunday 5/8/90 10.00 - Drongo got involved in a fight with some yobs who were beating up a motorcyclist from Archaos Circus show. Drongo says yobs had gun but police refuse to comment. Hole in Drongo's leather jacket, but he's just bruised, so it can't have been a bullet that hit him. Yobs dressed as schemies, but one had German accent. Odd. Replacement motorcyclist is Scottish - check background for 'local boy gets his chance' article. Phone hospital again. No luck getting to see injured motorcyclist - high security. Why?? No obvious connection with FIST, but maybe police have found something more than just a common assault or they wouldn't be keeping press away??? Ask Jane if she's got any ideas on how to sneak in to hospital - nurse uniform maybe? 15.00 - These people are insane! How can they do this? The replacement motorcyclist for Archaos rode along and fired a submachinegun into the crowd at Fringe Sunday. Why???? Innocent people killed and injured, and for what? What the Hell did he think he was doing? We'll never know from him because police marksman shot him dead. Need a drink urgently, but I don't want to leave office while there's a chance of casualty lists coming through. Oh God, what if someone I know is on them? This isn't El Salvador, this is Edinburgh, European City of F****g Culture for f*** sake. How can this be happening here? |
| Tues 14/8/90 9.18 - Just spoke to Bob. He says that someone (possibly French Intelligence) are blackmailing Rachel Hamilton's father with compromising pictures of her. Need to get to Paris to check things out there. 23.45 - Bob organised flights and accommodation in a grotty pensione for the three of us. Not a wonderful locale, but at least it's discrete. Wed 15/8/90 11.00 - Meeting Rachel for dinner tonight. Bob off checking his sources. Jane spotted some celebs and has gone off to photograph them. 00.15 - She's in love with the bastard. Damn. Well, at least she's right that he wasn't interested in her for her money. Tragic irony strikes again, poor Rachel. She's starry eyed and he's Mr Wonderful, even though he hasn't called her in two days. Got name and occupation out of her, will check if he's for real tomorrow. Dammit, why can't she find a decent man for once? Thur 16/8/90 Well, the name and the law firm check out, so he's been here a while, whatever else he's up to. Fri 17/8/90 Rachel's off to the Loire to meet Mr Wonderful. Wonder if he'll actually turn up. Maybe this is just some plan to get us out of Paris? Bob's staying here, Jane and I will be driving down tonight. Am dyeing my hair dark and wearing hideous flat shoes as a disguise. It had better be a really good disguise. I certainly don't want anyone recognising me when I look like this. Yuck. |
| Sat 18/8/90 15.20 - Well, there's a surprise. Mr Wonderful has actually turned up. They've been locked in the hotel for hours. I'm watching the back door and Jane's watching the front. Hope she's okay, but we can't exactly go barging in on her weekend of passion without a bloody good excuse. Feel horrible in this disguise, and am comfort-eating croissants to cope with the fashion atrocities. Serious diet will be needed when we get back home. 23.00 - Bob's arrived. Says Mr Wonderful was working for the French Secret Service - DGSE, apparently. So Bob's called them and told them Mr Wonderful is here so as to get him to run, then, with a bit of luck, we can pick him up and get him to spill his story. Sun 19/8/90 8.00 - Quiet night last night. Or not so quiet if Rachel was a lucky girl... Shame this guy's going to turn out to be an even bigger b*****d than the last one... 12.25 - Waiting out of the back of the hotel with Jane and a car. Jane's got a hipflask full of vodka and is drinking steadily so I said I'd drive. Bob's getting organised to have a breakdown on the road out of town to delay the pursuit. 19.48 - Well, that's got rid of Mr Andre the Wonderful. He spilled the story eventually and we got it all on tape, so now he's off on his own trying to keep ahead of the DGSE. He's got a decent start on them, anyway, not that he deserves it. Bob said something scary while we were talking to him - "I can see right through you." and it seemed that he could. He knew loads of stuff that even the guy's own mother shouldn't know, and caught him out on every single lie he told. |
| Tues 21/8/90 14.20 - Got papers from Bob's pal in return for sorting out poor Rachel's situation. MI5 seem to think FIST are Marxist terrorists with links to the Bader Meinhoff gang. MI6 think there's more to it than that. They're concerned about the unusual resources which FIST seem to have. There's something about DERA in the notes, but most of it is blacked out. Something odd about the explosives which they used in the Spiegeltent, maybe? The deceased motorcyclist (so far the only Scot we've found involved with FIST -Drongo says the guys who he had the fight with were definitely foreign) was a Nationalist and somewhat anti-Marxist. MI6 suggest that maybe they want to steal something in town and are using the terrorist angle as cover for it. One slightly odd thing from yesterday - the dogs at the security point at Edinburgh airport growled at me and Jane as we went past. The guards gave us funny looks, but I guess the dogs weren't doing what they do if they thought we had drugs on us so luckily we weren't stopped. 23.48 - Feeling pretty tired. Probably shouldn't have had that third martini. Our best guess is that FIST are after the Honours of Scotland - the resale value may not be terribly great if they have to be broken down, but imagine the blackmail potential. Fireworks Concert might be a good time to get into the castle without being too obvious. Friday 24/8/3 00.17 - Done some checks on Bob. All his various exes rate him "great fun". I suppose the advantage of always picking up attached women is that they don't particularly resent him dropping them again shortly afterwards. Nothing obviously odd in his flat, apparently. Nothing particularly odd in his background either. Deeply suspicious that he didn't respond to the coffee cup trick, though, that just isn't normal. Talked to Bob about the way he said "I can see right through you" and he said that it was just the same as me knowing exactly the right questions to ask. What did he mean? There's nothing odd about me. Or is there? |
| Wed 29/8/90 15.34 - Talked to Bob again about his strange behaviour. He admitted there was something odd going on. Apparently he has some mysterious object which helps him to read people's thoughts when he's close to them. He says that the airport guards seemed puzzled when the dogs growled at me and Jane. I'm puzzled too. It's not my perfume, for sure. I went to visit Veronica at the weekend and neither Chip nor Taylor growled at me at all. Am going to ask Dee if I can swap desks with her tomorrow. I'll miss the window, but I feel creepy about the idea that Bob could just be reading my mind all day while we're in the office. 18.08 - Jane's not sure why the dogs growled at us either. 23.48 - Bob, Jane and I tracked Drongo down in one of his favourite pubs. Apparently he'd won some sort of mechanical competition. Lots of people were buying him drinks, anyway. Have arranged to meet him tomorrow afternoon when he's sobered up a bit. Thurs 30/8/90 20.15 - Bob, Drongo, Jane and I are waiting on the Esplanade to see what happens tonight. Trouble is that it's so dark between the park and Castle Rock that'd we'd hardly spot anyone sneaking up until they were almost next to us. There's a lot of light on the front of the castle from the fireworks but the rest of it is in shadow. Two guards on the gate, probably more inside but I can't see them. We've got the radio on and are listening in to the police band. Oh and Drongo says he has no idea what stopped that bullet hurting him on the 5th. 21.07 - explosion somewhere on Lothian Rd. Police radio says it's the Film House. We're staying put. It's probably a diversion. 21.13 - S**t. Several more explosions around the town. Police radio going crazy. Ambulance sirens everywhere. Reports that the roads out of Redford Barracks have been blocked. What's going on? This is Edinburgh, not Beiruit. How has this happened to our home? 21.15 - Somebody just fired something off one of the roofs in New Town and hit the bandstand. Jane's trying to see what's happening through her telephoto lens. I'm watching the other side of the rock so I've no idea what she's found yet. Most of the soldiers from the castle just ran past us, I guess they're going down to help in the gardens. They didn't see me. Can hear an engine. Am staying hidden until I see what it is. |
Fri 31/8/90 |
| Sat 1/9/90 10.07 - Well, the article did go to press with Bob's and my names on it jointly, although the editor tried to get mine taken off it. B****d Graham phoned up. Started by saying congratulations, but then made it clear he thought it was really Bob's story and that I must be sleeping with Bob to have got a share in it. [expletives deleted] Damn glad I didn't phone the b****d last night, at any rate... God knows what I ever saw in him. Anyway, the story is more or less that Drongo is the hero of the hour. The police weren't keen on the rest of us having a share of the credit for what happened, and they won't give us the names of the terrorists or anything useful. They were desperate to have the news that the Honours are safe out as soon as possible, though, so they couldn't refuse to let us print almost all of it. Mon 3/9/90 9.00 - Sold Drongo's story as an exclusive to the Daily Record. The Sun would have paid more, but would have re-edited it, and anyway Drongo's getting a lot of credit from the Nationalists for being a Scottish hero, so it wouldn't have looked good to sell it to an English paper. He'll probably make up the difference in money quite soon anyway. He can't seem to set foot on the street these days without someone buying him a drink. Tues 4/9/90 14.25 - Just back from visiting Corporal Richardson at the hospital. At least he said thank you to me - for wrapping him in my coat and for calling the ambulance. Brought him some grapes, but wasn't sure what sort of magazines he'd read, so I got him a paper instead. He's prepared to let me do that interview that The Record wanted - human interest, background stuff on him, and what little he can remember about Thursday. The nurses gave me my coat back, and I've taken it to the dry cleaners, but I expect it's ruined. Still, at least it wasn't the new one I got in Paris. I've been wondering about the fake Honours that the thieves left at the castle. They must have been real jewels, or they wouldn't be convincing enough to pass as the real thing after an explosion. If they'd left fake Honours in the case behind glass then it could have taken people a while to notice, but after the explosion they must have expected serious forensic people to get involved in checking out absolutely everything. Also, why did they actually make up full replicas? Scattering the relevant amount of loose gold and gems around would seem to make more sense since the whole thing was going to end up in the middle of a huge fireball. |
| < < < previous journal entries | next journal entries > > > |
transcript of interview with Drongo - 31/08/90
Jane's letter to the Fate Club Management
Drongo's postcard to his mother from Moscow
