59 Minutes (11 page)

I decided to try again in the early evening in case he
was working - so I duly stretched a cup of coffee to breaking point in the
nearby ASDA and went for a walk - in the main to take my mind off the fact that
I had no money for food.

Around seven I headed back to Stevie’s house but it still
showed no signs of life. I thought about leaving a note but decided against it.
The beating has sparked up my warning radar.

I headed back to the hostel and got the young internet
geek to find me Stevie’s phone number on the web. This was done for free – no
cigarettes – just the threat of bodily violence.

So Stevie exists, is alive and well
and running a pub in the nether regions of Easterhouse. I phoned him two days
ago and he agreed to meet in town. I suggested the Mitchell Library – to avoid
the embarrassment of meeting in a pub or café and not having the cash to buy a
drink.

I’m not big on libraries. My reading tends to be The
Sun and the Daily Record and if I’m in the mood for intelligent debate I dip
into the Herald. I’ve probably read six books in my entire life and most of
them were forced down my throat at school. As such the ‘Mitchell’ was a bit of
a wonder to me.

I waited for Stevie in the old section – a grand
Victorian affair that was built when libraries were almost places of worship.
High vaulted ceilings, grandiose frontage and an entrance to grace a palace.

Stevie arrived bang on time. A tall
slim man with hair that looked like it had gone by the time he was thirty. He
wore a pair of battered jeans and a sweat top with the words
Strathclyde
University
emblazoned across the front. It looked old. A university degree and he was a
career puller of pints. That doesn’t make him a bad person but university was a
whole world away from my upbringing and I always envisaged it churning out the
future leaders of the free world - people who rarely say – ‘Will that be all?’
after each sentence.

We found a table and slumped into two hard back
chairs. His eyes were red. Drugs or lack of sleep – take your pick?

I opened up by handing him Martin’s letter. He looked
at it suspiciously. As would I given its state after all these years. He read
it with care and then handed it back to me.

‘I haven’t seen Martin since Christ left Govan.’

I nodded, waiting for him to open up a little but he
stayed quiet.

I asked if he knew why I’d been left a pint. It
sounded dumb.

‘It’s got fuck all to do with a pint. I wanted nothing
to do with it back then. But they threatened to do some damage to my mum. Can
you believe that – MY MUM. So I agreed. Take this and I’m off.’

‘Who are they?’

He blanked the question and reached into his pocket,
pulled out a key, dropped it on the table and was up and off before I could
speak. I grabbed the key and chased him out of the building but he broke into a
run, sprinted to the roadside, leapt into an old VW Beetle, locked the doors
and blanked me as he pulled away.

I watched the car merge into the traffic and when I
lost sight of it I opened my hand to look at the key. It was a small brass Yale
type with a few serial numbers on one side. Other than that it had nothing to
indicate what it was a key for.

One mystery after another but on this occasion I know
someone else that might be able to help.

Back to the old haunts is the order of the day. I
hardly recognised the Gorbals. New flats, leisure centre and a distinct lack of
many of the pubs I had frequented. I doubted that the person I wanted would
still be in the same house. I doubted they would still be alive. But they were both.

The man who answered the door was bald (where he had
once had a shock of ginger hair), wrinkled (where he had once had a face so
smooth he had been nicknamed ‘baby’) and a stoop (where once he had stood tall
and proud - five years in Her Majesties Armed Forces would do that to a man).
Recognition flickered in his eyes and he stepped back to let me in. There was
no fear – once there would have been – but my story was well kent and I was no
longer a threat.

The flat was minimalist and dominated by a wretched
stained coffee table that had the
Mount
Etna
of fag ash and doots as its
centre-piece. The heating was all the way up to eleven and the place smelled
like nothing I had ever encountered.

There was no offer of a seat. My host collapsed in the
only chair in the room. It sat square in front of the TV, next to the fag
mountain and, before his backside hit the fake leather, he lit up.

‘How you doing Ron?’ I asked.

‘Better than you from what I hear.’

That hurt. The house was a shit-hole and yet I was the
one on my uppers. Go figure.

‘I need a favour?’

‘It will cost.’

I knew it would. I had cleaned out the geek kid for
everything he had and bought forty fags. I dropped them next to the mountain.

‘Small favour,’ he said looking at the two packets
with contempt.

I dropped the key on the table.

‘What’s it for?’

In the good old days Ron had been a locksmith and a
bloody good one at that. In my house breaking phase Ron had been a saviour on
many an occasion. It was easier to get into a house with a key and it was often
surprisingly easy to snatch a key, copy it and return it to the owner. Ron did
the copying for a fee at odds with the going rate on the
High St
, but
the stiff cost paid for his silence.

He looked at the key and picked up one of the packets
of cigarettes, muttering something about the wrong brand before pulling a stick
from the pack and lighting up. The one in his mouth wasn’t even half dead.

‘Well?’

He inhaled and held up the key, twirling it over a
couple of times before dropping it back on the table. He said nothing and
exhaled.

‘Well?’

‘Safety deposit.’

‘What bank?’

He inhaled again and I was seconds from landing one on
him. It was like drawing teeth from a crocodile.

I waited.

‘Can’t be sure.’

He drew on the cigarette again and I changed tack.
Stepping behind him I wrapped my arm round his neck and pulled upward. He spat
out the fag and began to struggle but he was old and I had a fourteen year
stretch of using the prison gym in my arms.

‘Be sure,’ I said.

His choking was getting in the way of his ability to
talk and I loosened off a little.

‘Ok, ok, no need for the heavy stuff.’

I let go but stayed behind him, ready to grab him if
he made a move that looked out of place. I was staring down on his bald pate.
The collection of liver spots and scabs made for an unpleasant vista.

‘It ain’t a bank key. This is either a Credit Union or
a private box.’

‘Go on.’

‘There are very few private box places left. No money in
them anymore. I’d put money on a Credit Union but not a new one. The key’s old.
Twenty years, maybe more. They don’t make these anymore. Is the key local?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Assume it is. If we don’t you’re screwed. I only know
three Credit Unions that might, and I mean might, still have old safety deposit
boxes.’

‘What’s a Credit Union?’

I felt stupid asking but it was a hole in my
education.

‘A kind of community bank. It’s run by locals and
lends small amounts of money at decent rates and allows local people to save
money without having to go to the bank. They also do stuff like pay your bills
for you, arrange insurance and so on. There used to be lots of them when times
were bad. They seem to be coming back into fashion in some areas. I’m surprised
you’ve never heard of them given your career.’

He was referring to my loan sharking days and to be
fair I was surprised at my ignorance. Maybe there had never been any on my
patch?

‘Where are they?’

‘There’s still a shed load of them around but there
are only three that would have boxes for this key. There is one over in Easterhouse.
One up in Castlemilk and one over in Drumchapel.’

It figures. Easterhouse, Castlemilk and Drumchapel
were (along with Pollok)
Glasgow
’s ‘townships’ built in the sixties.

Overcrowding was becoming a real issue for
Glasgow
in the
fifties and the council targeted some twenty nine districts for renewal or
demolition. Close on a hundred thousand homes met the wrecking ball and many of
the inhabitants were shipped out to the new build ‘townships’ on the edge of
the city. At the time it was hailed as a master stroke. In truth
Glasgow
lost
its heart and soul, as row after row of tenements were flattened. 

The planners also gave little thought to
infrastructure. Thousands of people found themselves crammed into housing with
few facilities. Castlemilk with a population of close on fifty thousand didn’t
get a pub until the early eighties – thirty years after the first house went
up.

All four areas became hotbeds for gangs and trouble
but now there were third world debt levels of cash being invested to rid the
city of that legacy.

‘If I turn up with a key will they let me use it?’

‘No. You need the chit that came with the key or proof
of ownership. They won’t use the boxes that much now. They are not stupid. They
may even have trashed them although I doubt it’

‘Shit.’

I got him to write down as much as he knew about each
Credit Union and left.

As I walked back to the hostel it occurred to me that
I might just be about to get back into the ‘breaking and entering’ market
again.

To do that I need to tool up.

That fuckwit Ron talked. I should have guessed. I was
on the hostel steps yacking to ‘the Stink’ when a black Ford Mondeo cruised
passed. Not unusual but when it circled for the fourth time it caught my
attention. It was too early for a gang on a ‘beat a tramp’ trip so I just sat
and talked, with one eye looking out for the Mondeo. When it slid by for the
fifth time I told ‘the Stink’ I was going in for a cup of tea and he nodded.

Once inside I pulled up a chair near one of the front
windows and sipped the monkey brew as I scanned for the Mondeo but it didn’t
reappear. My wrist was giving me gip and my ribs were joining in the fun. The
last thing I needed was some more aggro.

Around
six
o’clock
I went out for a walk and a
think. I needed some tools of the trade but I was skint. I was just wondering
if Ron still kept a spare kit when the Mondeo screamed around the corner and
the doors flew open.

I didn’t wait to see who was emerging and turned and
ran. I hit
High St
with a full turn of speed and crossed the road to the
wail of a horn as a bus slammed on its brakes to avoid me. As I made the
pavement on the far side I looked round and saw two figures hot on my tail.
Behind them the Mondeo had started moving towards me.

I headed into the
Merchant
City
with no idea of where I was going to end up. All I
knew was that I was a target and the beating the other night might be the start
of something quite nasty. I hauled my backside onto
Albion St
and
headed north.

You can only keep running flat out for a short time
and I was already down to a jog. Add to that  the cast on my wrist and I
was struggling. Fortunately so were my pursuers.

I crossed
Ingram
St
and kept on up
Albion St
and
passed the old Glasgow Daily News building. I was entering
Strathclyde
University
land and, as I ran out onto
George St
, I turned left and headed for
George Square
.
I needed people around me. I was less likely to take a kicking in a public
place.

I looked back. The pursuers were at the corner of
Albion St
and
were getting into the Mondeo. I slowed to a walk.
George St
was
one way against them and I walked out into the square, heaving breath, but safe
for the moment.

The town was coming off the back of rush hour and
there were still a fair number of people doing the ‘going home’ thing. I
dropped into one of the benches that ring the western end of the square and
tried to blend in while keeping a sharp lookout for the Mondeo.

It appeared five minutes later and I hunkered down as
it drove by less than twenty feet away. It turned right to circle the square. I
got up and headed away from it and down towards the river.