59 Minutes (4 page)

I cut down on to the Clydeside, across the
Albert
Bridge
and
headed with speed towards the
Merchant
City
.

I found the street I was looking for - gasping for
breath and scared to the bottom of my nuts.

The single light above the door told
me I had arrived at the right place. I walked up to it, paused, took a deep
breath and knocked on the imposing double door that guarded the entrance.

High up in the wood a small shutter slid back and a
pair of eyes looked down on me.

‘Mr Read, please.’

I said it in a whisper but it was enough. The left
hand door swung open and heat and light spilled onto the street.

‘And what would a little gob-shite like you be wanting
with Mr Read?’

The doorman was decked out in a royal blue overcoat
that struggled to keep his muscles in check. This was no polite club steward.
This man was a human blockade.

‘Tell him that someone is going to do his house over.’

The blockade cocked his head and vanished.

I tell you now that I wanted to run. With every bone
in my body I wanted to sprint down that street and let the night swallow me up.
I’ll also tell you that had I done so I would have been dead in twenty-four
hours and you wouldn’t be here listening to this.

Two men in dark suits appeared in the doorway and,
without stopping for a by your leave, stepped onto the pavement, lifted me
bodily by the armpits and whisked me along the road and into
St Andrews Square
.

They hauled me round the church that sits in the
centre of the square and into the shadows beyond. I was dumped to the ground
and one of the men kicked me in the thigh.

Just making his point.

I lay on the cold pavement and waited. I knew better
than to ask any questions. Questions led to pain.

I looked up at the church and from the back end of my
mind I remembered being told that Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army had encamped
around the church’s walls after the disastrous invasion of
England
in
1745. I think I knew how he felt.

The two suits lit up cigarettes but said nothing and I
watched as the crappy street lighting played games with the smoke.

I heard footsteps and a heavily over coated man
rounded the corner. He was stocky and walked with purpose. A man used to getting
his own way in life. The two suits parted and he walked up to me.

‘Stand up.’

I did as I was asked and he turned and told the suits
to take a walk. Obviously I was no threat.

 ‘I’m here. Talk.’

I launched into my story. Disjointed and without
purpose he looked bored until I told him about my break in to his house and his
eyes darkened. I told him I had taken nothing and seen nothing. His eyes
dropped another shade. He didn’t believe me.

I told him where I had got the info on the house and I
told him I was in the shit however this played out.

‘How did Rachel Score know that I wouldn’t be home
tonight?’

I shrugged.

‘How did you know to find me at the club?’

‘I didn’t but I knew your dad used it. If you hadn’t been
here I’d have left a message for you to contact me.’

He laughed. It sounded odd in the dark. But I could
see his point. Me leave a message for him – good joke.

‘So why don’t I just get my friends to teach you to
swim with a chain round your legs?’

I tell you my heart was racing at twenty to the dozen
and then some. I had no plan other than to offer up Martin and Rachel in return
for my safety.

‘Because if I hadn’t come here Martin would have done
over your house. Still might.’

He looked at me. The way a boy looks at a bug just
before he squashes it. He shouted back to one of the suits for a cigarette and,
as he lit up, he never let his eyes stray from mine.

‘Your not as daft as you look,’ he said. ‘Any other
boy would have either trashed the house or run. But you figured you were dead
meat either way. Not bad. What did you see that told you not to fuck with me?’

I didn’t want to talk about the chest but I did. As
soon as I saw it I knew that Read was not someone to mess with. There was
serious shit in that chest and that meant someone who was a lot heavier than
Martin and I. Much heavier.

He blew out a cloud and threw the butt to the ground.

‘Tell you what. I’ll give you one chance to make good.
Fuck up and you’re history.’

He told me what to do.

Eleven fourteen
and
twelve seconds.

Suffice to say that night I entered the circle of Mr
Read and his associates. A then unknown circle but one that was to prove a hell
of a stepping stone.

I left him by the church and sprinted all the way to
Martin’s. I told him what I had done and made it clear he had one hour to leave
town. I finished by telling him that Mr Read’s friends would be paying a visit
if he didn’t vanish.

He flapped like a cat on a cooker ring. I may not have
known who Read was but Martin did and I left with no end of threats to my
person but Martin’s rantings were nothing compared to the verbal abuse that
Rachel Score heaped on me when I delivered her the same message. She was less
restrained on the physical front and opened a gash in my cheek with a vase that
was at hand.

I went home that night shaking with the adrenalin
rush. I couldn’t sleep and spent the night waiting for Mr Read, the suits,
Martin or Rachel to break down my door.

The next morning a kid of about twelve arrived at my
door. I recognised him as Mary Templeton’s, the wife of the local corner
store’s owner, youngest offspring, He pushed a piece of paper into my hand and
ran off.

The paper had a time and place on it – nothing else.
Three o’clock
. Hillhead
Underground station.

I turned up half an hour early and hung around until
one of the suits from the previous evening appeared and gave me another note.
It was from Mr Read and I now had a new boss.

The next few years were a turning point for me. After
a few months of thinning my shoe leather, Mr Read’s right hand man, a brutal
beast called Craig Laidlaw, sussed out I had a talent for breaking and
entering. He watched me at work a few times and, quite rightly, ranked me as
nothing more than a talented amateur. He sent me to meet a man called Kelly Greenlaw.

Kelly was an ex-housebreaker well into retirement, who
now spent as much time as possible staring at the bottom of an empty whisky
glass in the local pub.

In his day he had been the dog’s bollocks as a burglar
and now earned his dram money as a part time professor and tutor in the art of
breaking and entering.

When I first met him he said nothing until I bought
him a nip. It transpired that this was how things worked. I bought whisky and
he opened up a little.

Kelly was an expensive tutor. When we graduated to
hands on practical work I was expected to buy a quarter bottle from the
Stockwell Off Sales. He watched as I jimmied locks, cracked window catches and
smashed and trashed what couldn’t be picked. If I took too long I was
despatched to the off sales for a second bottle.

To earn cash to feed Kelly’s habit I went back to loan
collection for Mr Read but I didn’t mind. Kelly might have been an out and out
alcoholic but he knew his stuff.

Then, one day, after a trip to the pub, Kelly took me
to meet a couple of men up a back alley off
Argyll
Street
in the centre of
Glasgow
.

I was presented with a door and made mince meat of it
in seconds. Once inside we all climbed two floors and I was shown another door.
I cracked it and we entered an office dominated by a row of mesh-protected
windows, each with a customer slot. Each slot was attended by a till with its
drawer wide open - empty for the world to see.

Kelly nodded at the far wall and to another door. This
one was different. For a start it was made of metal and build into a steel
frame. There was also the matter of two keyholes and a padlock - all keeping
its contents nice and secure. Kelly pushed me forward.

It took a little longer for me to crack it but we were
in soon enough. This seemed to impress my colleagues.

The room beyond was wall to ceiling with shelving.
Each shelf was stuffed with paper. I pulled out one of the bits of paper and
recognised it as a betting slip. That explained the windows and tills. This was
a back street bookie’s shop.

In the centre of the floor stood a small safe bolted
to the floor. It looked new and solid and reminded me of the safe at Malcolm Smillie’s
place. Kelly grunted and got to his knees. I stepped back but was pushed
forward by one of Kelly’s friends and sat down next to the safe. It was clear I
was here to learn.

Kelly walked me through what he was doing; downing the
obligatory quarter bottle as he did so. He explained how the safe worked and
what we needed to listen for. I thought the stethoscope he used was a joke but,
back then, safes really could be cracked by listening for the tumblers falling.

He popped it open and I stood up, expecting the men to
empty the contents but Kelly closed the door, spun the tumbler and handed me
the stethoscope.

It took me three minutes – a good ten quicker than
Kelly to crack it. He was impressed. Mr Read had the need of a good safe
cracker and I had just pulled on the team strip.

That was the last night I saw Kelly. He vanished and
turned up in the King George V dock a week later. Nobody suspected foul play. I
reckon he just got tired of life and went for a swim – blind drunk. But I
always wondered if my little demonstration in the bookies had been the straw
that had broken his booze-soaked back.

Mr Read worked me hard. I was hardly an expert at my
craft and I had no choice but to learn as I went. At first my jobs were far
from
Glasgow
. With a varying set of companions I travelled the
length and breadth of the country –
Newcastle
,
Liverpool
,
Cardiff
,
Manchester
,
Derby
,
Carlisle
,
Plymouth
– the list was endless.

Each time the routine was the same. I would get my
orders via Mary’s kid and meet a variation of my new friends at Central
Station. They would have the destination, tickets and a carry-out.

On arrival at the town of choice we would meet up with
some locals in a dingy pub. Always a dingy pub. They would explain the gig and
point us in the right direction. Job done we never hung around and, on the
occasions that we could not get the last train out, there would be a car to
take us home. For two years I saw the
UK
by night.

After a while I realised that we never touched
London
and I
once asked why, only to be told to mind my own fucking business.

A year later I found out why.

With my cash flow improving I had moved out of my flat
and bought a semi-detached house on the south side. Nothing too grand but I was
on the up. The jobs were regular and so far trouble free. I wasn’t high enough
up to get the big cut, but I got a fair wage and my skills as a safe cracker
were growing.

By now Mary’s kid had given way to the phone and when
I received a call to go to the train station I packed my bag as usual and met
up with two of Mr Read’s elder statesmen - George Cummings and Tony Wright.

George and Tony were heavyweights and usually reserved
for big jobs. I’d never been with them on a gig before. When we boarded the
London
train I
knew this was something different.

The journey south was done in near silence. George and
Tony slept most of the way. The silence made me nervous and I didn’t close an
eye for the whole journey.

When we pulled in at Euston, I was exhausted and they
looked fresh. This time there were no locals and no dingy pub. We took a taxi
and jumped out near the Albert Hall and checked into one of the myriad of small
hotels that surround it. I had never been to
London
before but was destined
to see little on this trip.

Once in the hotel room George and Tony got to work on
the phone and told me to get some shuteye. I thought I was still too uptight to
sleep but must have dozed off because around three in the morning I was woken
by Tony and told to get ready.

We left by the front door. The receptionist was long
in bed and, back then, night watchmen were a luxury few small hotels needed or
could afford – so no one saw us leave. We hailed a taxi and headed south and
over the River Thames.