Numb: Numb, #1

By Raymond Moore

Coulter Caine is a man on a mission.

He recently found out his parents death wasn't an accident.

They fell victim to Glasgow's infamous Ballater Boys.

Coulter's rich and he's ready for vengence.

He also has something most people dont.

An inability to feel physical pain.

This is his superpower.

Every city needs a superhero.

Glasgow has Numb.

A graphic novelette without the graphics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baghdad Radio
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224211838

Raymond Moore

Raymond Moore is a Registered Nurse, working for The Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs in Saudi Arabia. As well as being a writer, Raymond has been a record label owner, band manager, and cover band. Born and brought up in Glasgow, he left his parents and moved to the Isle of Skye as a young teenager. Raymond is the author of the Skye Stories Trilogy available on Redshank Books and has self-published two poetry collections on Amazon. Poetry? Maybe and Poetry? Probably Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Nursing is his first novel. When not at work he spends his time with his wife who is Thai and their three children in Surin Province where he has a house and farm. He is currently working on his next book Castledawn a ghost story set on the Isle of Skye in the nineteen seventies.

Book preview

Somebody once told me that if it was raining fannies Pat ‘Packie’ Bonham would put his hand out and land a cock. That’s how unlucky the guy was. Packie wasn’t just unlucky, he was unbelievably stupid too. I mean fucking thick man. He was an idiot savant, minus the savant. How he got involved with the Ballater Boys is a total fucking mystery to me. They must’ve felt sorry for him or something. Not that he performed any important functions within their organization. No. Packie was just a runner. The guy you sent to do the most menial of tasks. The guy who went for the messages. And by messages, I mean he was the cunt you sent to the shop to get milk for the tea. Here’s the thing though. Idiots rarely think they’re fucking dumb. Most, if not all, generally believe they’re operating with the highest of IQs. Packie was one of them. He had dreams though, I’ll given that. Packie thought that if he showed the Ballater’s he was capable of independent decision making and was able to demonstrate he could generate a decent amount of income, he’d climb the Ballater Boy ranks, and one day be welcomed with open arms into their inner circle. I’ll give him an A for aspirations. I’ll give him that. Unfortunately, he gets an E minus for execution.

Packie’s big money-making idea was hardly original. In his mind the road to riches began with the world’s oldest profession – the fandan decided to become a pimp. Working girls – this, he thought would be easy money and a good way to show the Ballater’s that he was worthy of consideration should any vacancies’ need filling higher up the food chain. The one huge spanner in Packie’s works? The dafty had only managed to convince one girl to work for him – his girlfriend, who, to be fair, functioned at level that made Packie look like fucking Einstein. He’d set her up in his one-bedroomed council flat in Anderston but hadn’t considered that being on the 18th floor might be off putting to punters – especially when the lift was broken down. The building also had a concierge service and those nosey bastards knew everything that was going on within the walls of the tower block and believe me there was a lot more going on in that building than just Packie’s bird selling her nan. Anyway, to keep the concierge happy – his bird would blow him. He’d only been pimping her for a week when I decided to pay him a visit. I’d been watching the cunt for days and Packie was a man of habits. After finishing his his work for the Ballater’s he liked to sit in front of the TV, smoking a joint and watching Freeview. His bird being shagged in the next room didn’t put him off his routine. He just turned the volume of the TV up. How did I know all this? I’d booked an hour with his bird. When I got there I gave her a sob story about being shy and that I only wanted to talk. She was happy as fuck because I gave her twenty quid extra, and she didn’t have to fuck me. She liked to talk. Packie’s bird. In fact, she wouldn’t shut up. Getting the info I needed about her boyfriend’s routine was a piece of piss because as soon as I mentioned Packie, all she did was complain about him for thirty fucking minutes.

So why was I interested in this fud? First of all, I fucking hate the Ballater’s, but that’s another story. Don’t worry though. We will get into that in a minute. Anyway, so where was I? Oh aye. Packie. An organisation is as strong as its weakest link and Packie definitely qualified as a weakest link. He wouldn’t have any high-level intel or anything but he would know how to communicate with the chain of command and that was what I was after.

Packie was easy to follow around – he was probably stoned out his nut most of the time and wouldn’t have noticed if I was a pink fucking elephant tap dancing at his side. After observing him for a day or two I suspected he was using a communication app on his mobile, rather than using the network to call. Probably through a VPN. I needed to know what app he was using so I could hack it.

Packie was going to be my introduction presentation to the Ballater Boys and I wasn’t planning to use PowerPoint. It was going to be fun.

I was stood opposite his building when he arrived home. His bird had had only one punter who’d left a couple of hours back. A fiver well spent for that nugget of info from the concierge. At least I didn’t have to fucking blow him. There was no hurry. I was patient and I could be inconspicuous if I wanted. This was before my new togs arrived but I’ll tell you about them later. An hour later, I rang the buzzer. His bird answered. Told her it was me again and I was only interested in chatting. She buzzed me in immediately. The concierge gave me the thumbs up as I waited on the lift. One of the many wonderful things the pandemic left us with was that people got used to seeing cunts wearing masks. It wasn’t a thing anymore and with my hoodie pulled over my nut the CCTV would never I.D. me. Having said that, Glasgow was a city with an inordinate amount of security cameras dotted all over the fucking place. Home security systems were a fuck of lot cheaper than they used to be so every cunt had their own set up including Ring fucking video doorbells. Luckily for me, Packie hadn’t invested in any personal security other than the chain lock on his door which I could’ve easily kicked in if I wanted. His bird answered the door and invited me in. Sure, enough