A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
B
BADEN-POWELL, ROBERT (1857 - 1941) Soldier, Founder of the Scout Movement. I refuse to be critical of the enthusiasms or prejudices of the past. To judge someone by the age in which he lived is as superficial as defining him by his race or socio-economic group. Which of us can be confident that future generations won't regard his own contribution with a knowing smirk? Predictably today's right-on and sex-obsessed generation is more interested in Baden-Powell's political bent and alleged yearning for the boys under his command than any of his accomplishments. We can attribute this, of course, to the prurient mindset of the internet browser. Baden-Powell was a transparently well-meaning and sincere individual as, indeed, are the majority of his current leaders. There are, however, bad apples in any crop and it was my misfortune that the Drumfeld pack of which I was briefly a member was led by a rogue.
Details of my investigations into this individual are still too sensitive for general release. A wife and two daughters survive him, after all. Less compassionate investigators wouldn't hesitate to name and shame a man who laughed when one of his charges bound by his fellows, was dangled by the ankles from a tree and pelted with burnt potatoes from the camp-fire. "That's what you get for being a snoop!" he laughed at the time, blithely unaware that within a year fate combined with the diligence of Hamilton Coe would deliver an altogether harsher penalty for embezzlement, serial infidelity and benefits fraud. By a further horrible irony, he ended his life hanging from a tree in the same wood in which he supervised my ordeal. His suicide gave me no satisfaction. An unsuitable leader of boys, he was, nonetheless, a human being, albeit one governed by significant character flaws.
Since my own scouting days, incidentally, the movement's membership has been decimated by an absence of civic spirit and exaggerated terror of paedophiles. Remaining Scouts are low calibre careerists desperate for awards and activities with which to fill their c.v.'s. A significant percentage of today's scouts, I suspect, will go on to join the Round Table, a development which should be discouraged as urgently as experimentation with drugs.
Hamilton Coe, far right, before his tree ordeal.
BAIRD, JOHN LOGIE (1888 – 1946) Engineer, Inventor of Television. What was conceived as in innocuous parlour trick has heralded a dark age of sadism, vanity and sloth. The imaginations of subsequent generations have been deadened by its influence to the extent that many children of the current generation have been born without the capacity to dream, referring instead to the generic memory bank created and controlled by television production companies. While I might differ with many aspects of psychiatric dream interpretation, I wouldn't dispute the role that dreams play in filtering the subconscious. Without this function, sections of the human race will inevitably mutate into a subspecies entirely dependent upon machines and unevolved humans for survival. Los Angeles, the home of the television industry, already contains many prototypes of this tragic new race: confined to their wastefully large cars, they dress like infants and worship at the altar of their pets while bemoaning the onset of MID LIFE CRISIS.
Future 'Human'
BAKER, TOM (1934 - ) Actor – To this day BILLY URE persists in the delusion that he might one day be recognised as an author. This misconception was borne of his DR WHO story winning a Blue Peter competition. Rather than write about a Time Traveller, of course, Billy might have drawn on personal experience of assisting me in various cases. While the competition specified that Dr Who feature as a leading character, there was no stipulation against his being investigated. A story in which Who was exposed as a clandestine menace would, I suspect, have been vastly superior to Billy's entry, which involved him joining forces with Rabbie Burns to destroy a nest of daleks. By any dispassionate analysis, the end product was poorly written and devoid of tension. Billy failed to adequately explain either Burns' presence in 20 th century Callender or the daleks' motivation in conquering the town's woollen mill. That good, predictably, triumphed over evil was attributable to luck and inconceivable co-incidence rather than any skilled plotting on Billy's part.
While recent scandals involving the BBC's competition selection process render all previous results questionable, it would be ungenerous at this late stage to steal Billy's moment of glory. Despite my misgivings about the story's quality, I didn't begrudge Billy's success. Far from it! Nobody applauded him more ardently! I even broke my own ‘no television' rule to watch him receive his award. There he sat on the Blue Peter couch, two feet away from noted Soho degenerate, Tom Baker, the former hurdy-gurdy man who portrayed Dr Who at the time. As Billy recoiled from Baker's boggle eyes and mirthless grin, I was overwhelmed by such a profound sensation of primeval cruelty that I took an ornament from the mantelpiece and hurled it into the television before being overwhelmed by a twenty minute seizure. Baker's richly sardonic tones, pulsating with netherworld vibrations, still activate my radar as he advertises products from dog food to tabloid newspapers.
In her book, incidentally, NINA KELLY sees fit to remind readers that Billy's triumph was tarnished by the revelation that he adapted Norman Whyte's story ‘Rabbie Takes a Nap', introduced Dr Who and some Daleks before presenting it as his own work. Need we dwell on his humiliation? The world has surely moved on since the drizzly November morning when BBC employees emerged from the mist to reclaim his prize: a fully sized Dalek which Billy's jealous classmates had already rolled down Mackie Brae, its proud owner trapped inside. Later that week, as if he hadn't suffered enough, Billy was publicly denounced by gormless Blue Peter presenter Simon Groome.
BALCESCU, COSMIN (1963 – 2000) Librarian. In 2000, the Bucharest department invited me to assist in the investigation of poor Mr Balescu's murder, a crime that exhibited signs of magic ritual, not uncommon in that part of the world. I've worked with police in Central and Eastern Europe on various occasions. Detectives in poorer countries are more inclined to respect the expertise of outsiders. Our own policemen have an unrealistic confidence in their own capabilities and resent what they perceive to be interference. This is why so many investigations are botched. At the time, I was preoccupied with the Marion Hazard mystery but, having been entrusted with the resolution of a case which had thrown Transylvania into a panic, I was reluctant to prove the Rumanians' faith misplaced. While I concluded the Hazard case, though, a local psychic, IORGU ZEKLOS, insinuated himself. I knew Zeklos from a conference in Vancouver from which he'd been sent home in disgrace after a horrible incident in his hotel bathroom. The thought of him swanning around Bucharest stroking his greasy moustache and ogling street-children while charging his bar-bills to an already impecunious police department caused me to behave rashly. I had only partially recovered from my virus (see GERMS and HOUDINI, HARRY) when I attempted to scrutinise the objects sent for analysis. My sister (see CHRISTINE COE), who was attending me, tried to intervene, but I wouldn't listen. Whether I was intent on exposing Mr Balcescu's killer or thwarting Zeklos, as Christine subsequently insisted, is irrelevant. Evil is evil, whatever form it might take. The experienced detective recognises this. The space between an evil thought and an evil act is non-existent. The neophyte might find this concept hard to grasp. He'll have to take my word for it. Where evil is concerned, there's no grading system, simply right and wrong.
BALSILLIE-URE, KAREN (1969 - ) Legal Assistant, Divorcee, Termagant. Solitary people without the courage to walk through life alone, often reach their mid to late thirties and, in the throes of desperation, attach themselves to the first person who makes prolonged eye contact. Such couples subsequently build their relationship around a repertoire of feeble private jokes and imitations of what they imagine to be adult behaviour based on recollections of the younger years of their own parents. They barbecue, host dinner parties for similarly blighted friends and pretend to enjoy the same films and television shows. Mutual incomprehension prevails as both sacrifice the qualities and ambitions that preceded their relationship. After an initial compromise, one invariably becomes dominant and the other the equivalent of his or her protege, suddenly espousing similar opinions or affecting an interest in the same type of music, films or literature. Such relationships, in my experience, often unravel in murderous intrigue as one of the two, usually the subservient partner, tries to negotiate an escape by the administration of poisoned treats or a shove at the top of a flight of stairs.
Billy Ure's marriage to Karen Balsillie, I'm afraid, falls firmly into this category. Balsillie, a moody, abrasive woman whose allergies to domestic animals and various food-stuffs seem contrived to draw attention to herself and cause maximum inconvenience, is a manifestly unsuitable companion for a character as malleable as Billy. Within weeks of their meeting she had made him grow his hair long, dragged him along to line dancing classes and discouraged his involvement with the Hamilton Coe Foundation to the extent that he started avoiding my phone calls.
When the couple announced their engagement, I considered it my duty, as Billy's oldest friend, to point out the folly of his actions. The vindictiveness of Karen's response provided conclusive evidence of her warped nature. Despite my willingness to put aside my reservations and support Billy on his wedding day, she excluded me from the party, manouevering her cousin, CALUM LIVINGSTONE, into the role of best man.
BALSILLIE, CAMERON (1995 - ) Younger son of KAREN BALSILLIE and Greg Semple. There is no professional support network available to the parents of unprepossessing children. The tendency to automatically condemn them helps no-one. We should be considerate toward people whose offspring squawk, kick and sulk until we've established the cause of the child's discontent. Then we might apply compassion or condemnation, whichever is appropriate. Even though I was in my infancy when my powers became apparent, I can still vividly recall the ostracism to which I was subjected as I struggled with the initial confusion familiar to any child of enhanced intuition. These problems were compounded by the matter of my personal appearance. My cousin PAMELA MALCOLM writes that I possessed a ‘vast, wall eyed face, bulging from the pram like a malevolent planet.' Photos from the time of my infancy tend to vindicate her humorous (if cruel) assessment. According to my mother, my appearance was only slightly less alarming than the hoarse bellow with which I remonstrated against the encroachment of unfamiliar parties. While I'm sufficiently robust to enjoy a joke at my own expense, I feel a retrospective sorrow on my parents' behalf. All they wanted was for the world to love their son. How terrible it must have been for them to see him rejected on account of the very attributes that made him special.
There are, unfortunately, no mitigating factors to excuse Balsillie's behaviour. While his parents have, without any reference to expert opinion, diagnosed ASPERGER'S SYNDROME, his fiendishness is symptomatic of chronic over-indulgence. Many children spawned by loveless relationships exhibit personality traits similar to those of the latter Roman emperors as their estranged parents compete for their affection. JOHN HYSLOP, the only competent child psychologist currently active in Scotland, has identified this trend as a contributing factor to future crime rates. Ironically, the parents currently lavishing their undeserving offspring will suffer the consequences of their wrath when they're no longer capable of fulfilling their expected roles. Parricide rates have soared in the past twenty years as man-children, convinced of their right to fulfilment; destroy the elderly impediments to happiness.
Since embarking upon a relationship with Balsillie's mother, WILLIAM URE has, if anything, made matters worse by adopting a policy of self-ingratiation. Is there anything more aggravating than the sight of a grown man, reddening under the contemptuous scrutiny of restaurant staff and diners, imploring a child clad entirely in combat fatigues to finish his dessert with the encouragement that, “It's monkey brains, Cameron. You like monkey brains!”?
BARR, JASON (1987 - ) Pornographer. For four years, until I exposed him, Barr ran a website called Vixens Chained. Instead of accusing me of “persecution”, Mr and Mrs Barr might like to consider the fact that they have raised a deviant who peddles doctored images of his female classmates for the delectation of his fellow on-line perverts. By their version of events, however, repeated in NINA KELLY's book, Jason, who enslaves every woman he meets in the dungeons of his imagination, is nothing more than a harmless sci-fi enthusiast. Total rot! I'm reliably informed that he now plans a new web-site: a preposterous support group for the so-called Victims of Hamilton Coe. My lawyers and I await its appearance with interest.
JasonBarr
BAXTER, RODERICK (1965 - ) Blackmailer, poisoner. Throughout his school career, Baxter bragged about his connection to the soup dynasty of the same name to which he was tenuously related. He endlessly extolled the virtues of Baxter's products while apportioning rival brands with unedifying descriptions, summoning images of vomit and botulism. His schoolmates found his fixation peculiar, but learned to humour him: ferociously loyal to the 'family' business, he was once suspended from school after reacting violently to being duped into complimenting the flavour of a Campbell's soup which had been presented to him in a Baxter's tin. "I hate Campbells," he seethed while mauling the perpetrator of the prank. This was the first instance of the type of over-reaction that would recur throughout his subsequent career.
On leaving school, Baxter wrote to his 'parent' company seeking a placement. He was mortally offended, however, when offered a menial position in the staff kitchen. After two weeks of drudgery and repeated warnings to desist from attempting to enter the boardroom, he was dismissed after being caught in the act of spitting into a pot of beans being prepared for his co-workers' lunch. His appeal for a personal audience with the directors was rejected and, after a twenty four hour delay caused by his barricading himself into the executive toilet, he was escorted from the premises.
As any experienced investigator will concur, a fantasist is at his most dangerous in the immediate aftermath of disillusion. Embittered by what he perceived as unfair treatment, Baxter embarked upon a poison pen campaign, randomly targeting Baxters he found in the phone book, many of whom had no connection to the food group. At the same time, he started placing doctored tins of Baxter's produce on the shelves of his local supermarket. Thankfully, the introduction of foreign materials was so clumsily executed that the adulterated tins were almost immediately spotted and other stores were alerted. Baxter, meanwhile, oblivious to the fact that his handiwork had already been spotted, wrote to Baxter's informing them of the doctored tins and his intention of continuing his campaign regardless of any financial inducement to desist. It was, he concluded, "a matter of principle."
Analysis of the tampered tins revealed the introduction of various pernicious ingredients including urine and cleaning fluid. Despite the ineptitude of the contamination, Baxter's were left with no choice but withdraw over five thousand tins of soup. Any sense of jubilation enjoyed by Baxter, however, was short lived. In writing to Baxter's, while taking care not to leave prints, he had made no effort to disguise his handwriting. A straightforward comparison of his declaration of malicious intent with his original job application was sufficient to bring about his downfall.
BEITH, RONALD (1964 – 1990) Pervert, Instigator. I've often argued that petty acts of malice accumulate to contribute more to human unhappiness than any Mafia. A compulsive liar or cheat is as destructive in his way as a murderer. The experienced investigator recognises this. Once we have established a man's poor character we can cease to be surprised by the full extent of his depravities. Ronald's character was evident to me on our first meeting when he was presented as my personal tutor. My immediate objection to his presence, however, was pooh-poohed.
At the time, my own stock was low. Ridiculed in THE PEOPLE WHO SAW TOMORROW television series and excluded from the education system in the aftermath of the KAREN GARDNER affair, my judgement was considered flawed. My parents, beleaguered by public disapproval were determined to curb my investigative instincts while my aunt, normally my staunchest supporter, was absent, suffering the effects of nervous exhaustion. Beith's interview was further complicated by the presence of a social worker who turned out to be a relative. “Stop staring at Ronald like that,” she snapped as I tried to intuit something more specific than the overwhelming sensation of dampness prompted by his presence. As Beith stammered and compulsively swallowed his way through the interview, I tried to interject with questions of my own: “Who is Nicola?” I demanded. “Why is her tongue so dry?” Before I could reach a satisfactory conclusion, though, Beith's relative intervened. I was ordered from the room – my own family sitting room! – and he was employed in my absence. Thus began a relationship that, in its way, was as intimate as any marriage. Until his demise in a fume filled garage five years later, Ronald Beith was to establish himself as my Moriarty. Without my constant attention, Beith, whose malign genius ensured brief careers in St Andrews, Durham and Swansea, would have attained a position from which he might have wrought chaos on a grand scale. Legal constraints and the discretion essential to any effective investigator prevent me from being more specific. When eventually submitted to the public domain, however, my complete Beith files will present a portrait of a monster.
Ronald Beith
BI-POLAR DISORDER a.k.a. Manic Depression – Currently the psychiatric condition of choice of many celebrities, replacing recent favourites ASPERGER'S SYNDROME and OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER. Children's television presenter, Sally Bowles, is the latest celebrity to confess to her struggle with the condition, an acknowledgement prompted by a drunken nightclub assault on a sixty year old cloakroom attendant.
BISHOP, ELIZABETH (1968 - ) – Stirling Council's Director of Culture and Leisure. As an occasional voluntary guide and guardian of the semi-permanent Hamilton Coe exhibition, I was present at Drumfeld Museum when Ms Bishop visited, proclaiming her intention of making the Drumfeld experience ‘more relevant' to visitors. In my experience, the word ‘relevant', nearly always misused, should trigger alarm: it seldom augurs anything other than fatheadedness.
Within days of her visit, Ms Bishop had ordered the removal of the Hamilton Coe exhibition from the Scott Room, replacing it with a collection of photographs taken by disabled Dundonians. One can only conjecture why she imagined this to be ‘more relevant' to people in Drumfeld than the career of the town's most celebrated inhabitant. The Hamilton Coe exhibits, incidentally, many on loan from the Hamilton Coe archive at Glasgow University, were deposited in bins awaiting collection by the refuse department. Only my unscheduled appearance prevented their destruction.
Liz Bishop
BLACK, IRENE (1932 - 2007) Headmistress. The unfortunate consequence of the modern teacher's tendency toward ingratiation and buffoonery is a generation dominated by the unbridled excesses of cretins. While this is obvious to any observer, we should be wary of indulging in mindless nostalgia for an age of indifference and brutality. Teachers, circumscribed by their own limitations, have always championed nonentity. Whatever the weapons at their disposal, tawse, indifference or withering rebuke, they have proved themselves the age-old enemies of promise. No gifted child should be subjected to a school environment. This has always been the case. While I rarely indulge in retrospection, the recent death of Mrs Black caused me to reflect on the injustices inflicted upon me under her headmistress-ship.
Had Mrs Black even attempted to comprehend the problems unique to clairvoyant children, my school career might have been entirely different. With reference to the guidelines supplied by the Gibson Institute (and binned in my presence), my fellow pupils might have been coached in their dealings with the special individual in their midst. On reaching adulthood, they might have remembered their assocation with Hamilton Coe with pride and affection. Instead, I suspect, the mention of my name might rouse the inconsolabe hounds of conscience.
BLADDER, CAPACITY OF – Television fails to touch upon the necessity of exemplary bladder control to the successful investigator. This is a prerequisite, in fact, of excellence in any realm of human endeavour. The talents of the most naturally gifted performer or sportsperson would be completely nullified by a preoccupation with bodily functions. Similarly, many potentially successful investigators are stymied by a limited bladder capacity. How many carefully planned surveillance operations have been compromised by an unscheduled toilet break? When the Adventure of the Squeaking Shoe is released into the public domain in 2015, the reader, I'm sure, will be astonished by the manner in which my efforts to thwart a fiendish plot were almost undermined by BILLY URE's constant need to urinate. Note to neophyte investigators: the surest way of alerting a suspect to your attentions is to request the use of his toilet!
For purposes of focus, I tend to drink large quantities of coffee while on a case. I have however, trained my bladder to the extent that I have a 36 hour retention capacity. Even without adding coffee to the equation, most martial arts masters can only boast twenty four. Despite these powers of self control, I'm not embarrassed to confess to using adult nappies as a safe-guard.
BODY LANGUAGE - No great gifts are required to evaluate personalities. I'm not boasting when I say that, within minutes of making his acquaintance, I know a man almost as well as he does himself: sometimes better. I'm not confounded by the various self-deceptions people employ to make their lives bearable. Most of the secret fears and yearnings we think hidden are, in fact, only too apparent. Given a stranger's point of view for even minutes, our self conception would be annihilated. Few people can cope with this sort of awakening. The realisation that the fears and yearnings we thought concealed are, in fact, only too apparent is sufficient to trigger the sort of crisis commonly associated with pathetic and inappropriate behaviour. Today we sneeringly allude to this as a symptom of undignified middle-age. Our ancestors, however, considered it a spiritual death from which there is rarely any hope of recovery.
When I look at someone my vision is unclouded by either prejudice or sentiment. I don't think to myself, “I like him” or “I can't stand her”, I merely observe them and note how they react to certain circumstances. Nine times out of ten, this is something I'm able to anticipate.
Few people possess the quality of self-mastery. They betray themselves in a thousand ways. To the perceptive observer, his friends' and neighbours' secret flaws are immediately apparent. There's no great mystery behind this, the point is learning to reach a sensible conclusion through observation. There are a thousand and one gestures that indicate a guilty conscience. The implications of someone habitually evading eye-contact, for example, are perfectly straightforward, but is this person aware of the impression of furtiveness he conveys? Someone else covers his mouth while he speaks. This is the instinctive response to dishonesty, but how many liars realize how blatantly they give themselves away? When I speak with Spencer, for example, unless he's bolstered himself with alcohol, he mumbles, picks at his lip and looks at the floor. These are all symptoms of a guilty conscience. In Spencer's case, this might have a thousand sources. An obvious one is the assistance he offered NINA KELLY with her book on my career. A psychologist might argue that he did this because he's a CHILD OF ADOPTION with unresolved abandonment issues. This is all very well, but what do we propose to do about it? Spencer is in his late thirties, he can't very well be suckled. Our prisons and mental institutions are full of people with “unresolved abandonment issues”.
BUNDY STREET. Los Angeles thoroughfare named tastelessly after mass murderer. My residence for the period in which executives discussed and eventually rejected plans for a movie based on my adventures.
BURNS, FRANCIS (1963 - ) Drunkard, Musician, Satanist. A passable singer and enthusiastic pianist, Burns has long been a fixture on what I've heard referred to as ‘The Trossachs Scene'. Better known as Rockin' Robin, The Boogie-woogie man and the Highlander, all names he has attributed to himself. He ruins songs, in my opinion, by frequently referring to himself in grotesquely whimsical, self-pitying terms: “Poor old Frankie can't take it no more,” he might whine or, “Spare a thought for poor old Frankie when you're lying next to Steve.” Of course, I can't claim any expertise in the realm of rock and pop. I rarely listen to anything other than Holst or my beloved MAHLER. I'll concede, though, that on the occasions I've seen him play, I've found my foot tapping along to his repertoire. He's certainly a more accomplished entertainer than my brother Spencer, though his style is unnecessarily flashy and he dyes his hair. While I'd also contest his oft repeated assertion that “Freedom's just another word for nothing else to lose”, I'd advise from experience against discussing the fallacy of the argument with him.
A volatile individual when drunk, Burns has been barred from a total of thirty seven pubs and the entire town of Pitlochry where, in a fit of pique, he once set fire to a phone box. Five years ago he punched Spencer's head in retaliation for smirking when he compared himself to Jerry Lee Lewis. As the frequent recipient of Spencer's smirks, I can confirm, without condoning violent retaliation, that they are very aggravating. Rumours that Frankie summoned the devil in Aberfoyle churchyard and exchanged his soul for a skull ring and a sixteen year old girlfriend led to his being excluded from Drumfeld's Hogmanay celebrations. His girlfriend has since had a child, Frankie, Junior, whose welfare is monitored by the social services. See also COE, SPENCER, DEVIL, THE and DALRYMPLE, JOHN
Francis Burns
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z