59 Minutes (13 page)

I forgot it was Saturday. I lose track so easily. It
was after lunch before I got there and it was closed.

The building sits in a row of shops in a run down
mall. The mall is the epitome of a shopping experience in one of
Glasgow
’s more
challenged areas. In order, left to right as you look at them from the pavement
- the row of shops contains the following - Charlies - fish and chips, Ho Wah -
Chinese take away, Five in One - kebabs et al, Mother India - Indian, Tantastic
- sun beds for the masses, ‘Booze for All’ - cheap drink, Kenny’s - sweets and
fags, Easterhouse Credit Union, Priced Out - corner store, MacWilliams -
bookies.

It doesn’t take much of a challenge to the intellect
to realise why some areas of
Glasgow
have a life expectancy twenty years less than others.

The whole block is a sixties strip with a car park on
the roof. Behind it lies a small lane that provides access for deliveries. A
couple of CCTV cameras pay lip service to security but the real issue is the
out and out quantity of plate steel that rolls down of a night and protects the
front and back of the shops.

The shop owners are no fools and the Credit Union is
no exception. I’m not sure what I had in my head but my target isn’t welcoming
me with open arms. The shutter is a serious deterrent and the locks that bind
it to the pavement would need plastic explosive to break them.

The rear is not much better but, as with every
break-in I’ve ever been involved in, the obvious routes are always the best and
the most obvious is the tiny window that sits next to the back door.

Unlike the door it is protected by a wire grill not a
steel shutter, but it is sturdy and the window is re-enforced mesh glass. It
looks too small to let a man through but you would be amazed at what you can
slip through if you have to.

Tomorrow I’ll suss out the other two and then it’s
down to the hard bit.

I’ve hit a slight problem. Although the Castlemilk
Credit Union is a doddle, it’s almost a mirror of the one in Easterhouse and,
better still, the window at the back has no grill, relying instead on the wire
mesh that runs through the small pane - Drumchapel is a different kettle of
fish altogether.

For a start it is inside a new shopping mall with all
the attendant security that that now entails. It sits near the south entrance
but when the mall is locked down it’s patrolled by security guards and is
heaven for CCTV junkies – there has to be a couple of dozen that I saw and I
probably missed half. To make matters worse the Credit Union has a steel
shutter and there is no rear access to the shop.

I’ll start with Castlemilk and if it’s a blank I’ll
try Easterhouse. If I’m still none the wiser to the key’s secret I’ll need to
figure a way to crack Drumchapel.

Castlemilk is on for tonight.

A dud and a bad dud at that. I arrived at the row of
shops in Castlemilk after
11.00pm
and almost got myself in a fight straightaway as I
stumbled on a gang of lads glugging MD 20/20 in the lane behind. Four or five
bottles to the good and the six of them were up the far end of the lane.

At first, I thought I could break in and leave them be
but, as I walked down the lane, I was spotted and they started towards me. I did
the manful thing and retreated, waiting for half an hour before I chanced my
arm again.

This time they were sitting outside the Credit Union
back door and starting to kick up some nonsense. One of them was balancing on
the wall that bordered the lane and was trying to back-flip like a beam
gymnast. It was never going to end well and he crashed to the ground to the
amusement of his mates.

I watched them fanny around for twenty minutes and
when they cracked open another bottle I considered walking away but, just then,
I heard footsteps behind me. Before I could move I was slammed into the wall as
ten or twelve boys hurtled past screaming and shouting. The next I knew, there
was the battle of
Bannockburn
going on in the lane and, by the sounds of things, the
new gang were no less the worse for wear on the alcohol front than the gang
they were attacking.

I watched from the relative safety of the end of the
lane as the fight geared up. Ten minutes in and the police siren on the wind
told me someone had dialled 999. I turned, sprinted across the road, dived into
a close in the tenement opposite and waited for the police to arrive.

Three patrol cars cruised up to the entrance of the
lane – blues and twos now in quiet mode. They pulled up out of sight of the lane
and seven policemen got out. There was the faint buzz of a radio and then they
disappeared around the corner and into the lane. Seconds later bodies started
streaming out of the lane entrance. The police emerged a few minutes later with
five of the boys in tow. They were thrown into the back of the cars and it was
over before it really had a chance to begin.

I heard a door open behind me and turned to see a
figure emerging from the dark.

‘Whit the fuck are you doing?’

The voice sounded heavy with drink. Does every fucker
drink round here?

‘Just avoiding the nonsense out there,’ I said,
pointing to the entrance of the close.

‘I don’t give a shit. Piss off or I’ll break your
legs.’

Outside the police were still tidying up and I needed
to be part of that scene like a hole in the head.

‘I’ll be out of your hair in two minutes.’

The stranger was now in sight, lit by the glow of the
streetlights from outside and oozed wee man syndrome in a big way. I’ve seen it
all before - men shorter than they want to be, making up for it by being
aggressive unreasonable shits. Trying to add inches to their height by acting
the big man. It stinks and can be a pain in the arse but I was fucked if I was
going to let some little shit with a vertical complex piss on me.

He had brave pills going on and stepped in close. I
could smell the booze as the vapour wafted up my nose - his head barely up to
my shoulder.

‘You’ll be out of my hair right fuckin’ now.’

I turned to him and, as the car doors were still
shutting behind me, I lifted my right knee, grabbed his mouth with my good hand
and sunk a knee deep into his bollocks. My hand caught the scream. I pushed his
head back and caught his leg with my foot and sent him to the ground.

Dropping to my knees I grabbed his head and slammed it
onto the concrete with as much force as I could muster. His head bounced and he
groaned. I balled my fist and slammed it into his gut and stood up. He wasn’t
out cold but he was well fucking gubbed. I looked out of the close and was
rewarded with the sight of retreating tail lights. I gave one glance at the
stranger and exited. It was good to know I could still handle myself if needed.
Even if it was against a midget drunk.

I crossed the road and entered the lane with no
thought that my victim would be after me. I was sure the wee man would gather
himself up and head home. Calling the police would be the last thing on his
mind.

I reached the back door of the Credit Union, took out
a small torch from my pocket and played it around the edge of the window. I was
looking for the tell tale shadow of a tremble alarm but if it was there it was
well hidden. That was a surprise. I had expected a tougher gig than this. After
all this was all but a bank in name.

I took out a curled up piece of cloth from under my jacket
and laid it on the ground. I unfurled it and, in the half light, selected a
ball and preen hammer along with a small punch. I placed the point of the punch
at the bottom left corner of the mesh window and struck it with the hammer.

The punch went through and the glass spidered. I
repeated the operation until the bottom corner was a maze of cracks. I turned
the hammer over, using the preen to finish driving a hole in the corner.

Grabbing the busted glass I levered it away from the
window. Putting some welly into it I pulled again and the rest of the window
peeled away like Blu-Tac on a warm day. I forced the window to bend up into the
top right corner. The mesh held the glass together and the whole window now
hung from the frame like a bent and twisted shutter.

I cleared away the sharp edges around the frame with
the hammer and shone the small torch into the room beyond. It was stacked full
with boxes and in one corner there was a small table with a wooden chair in
attendance. High up in the top corner was a small white box. An infrared
passive detector.

In my day such technology was the domain of the rich
and powerful. Nowadays it was available from Tesco’s and would almost certainly
be linked to the local police station. I wasn’t worried. I had no intention of
being inside for more than a few minutes.

I had spent the last few days getting to know the
layout of all three jobs in intimate detail. As my cell mate for the first four
years inside had said to me on more occasions than I cared to remember –
planning is everything. The fact he had been caught during an opportunistic
house breaking seemed to pass him by.

Beyond the room was the main shop - an open area that
served the public. No counters. No wire cages. Open plan was the order of the
day and the safe was in the room next to this one. A bottle of Glen’s vodka,
that I could ill afford, and a long term customer that I had befriended in the
local pub had given me the low down – to the smallest detail. She had once
worked there and knew the layout inside out. Yes, she had told me, there were
some safety deposit boxes but only half a dozen and they were rarely used. She
didn’t know if there were any that hadn’t been touched in years but she told me
she wouldn’t be surprised.

All I had to do was exit the door from the room I was
looking at, turn left, enter the next one and I was in the safe room. My friend
had assured me that the door to the safe room wasn’t strengthened and the plan
was simple – in and out as quickly as possible.

I pulled up my hood, heaved myself onto the window
and, as I slid through the gap, the red light blinked and the alarm went off. I
rolled on the floor and, kicking boxes out of the way, I rushed through the
door and into the shop.

But my friendly snitch had either lied or was out of
date with her info. The other door was locked and it was a heavyweight son of a
bitch. I’d had visions of kicking the thing in but given the CCTV cameras I
hadn’t dared enter the building to check it myself. Mistake. It took me ten
minutes to crack the lock and I knew that the police were on their way but the
fact they had just lifted five of the gang gave me hope that they might be
light on back up.

The ten minutes seemed like ten hundred and my ears
were only listening for one sound - sirens.

The door opened and I pushed inside to find a mother
of a safe door on the right and a dozen boxes on the left. I whipped out the
key and in sixty seconds knew that I had drawn a blank. I exited, head down to
the camera and I was back in the lane in less than a minute. The sirens were on
the rise again but I vanished into the scheme before the police could arrive.

Tonight it’s Easterhouse.

Dud number two. Much easier than Castlemilk though. I
knew the boxes were in the room I was breaking into and the wire mesh on the
window was a breeze to cut through. I was in and out in two minutes and back in
the hostel by
one o’clock
.

Now things get tricky. Drumchapel is a bastard. I’ve
been over there four times and I’m still clueless. In the old days I would just
have walked in with a couple of gorillas and concluded my business. With no
back up and no weapon it’s a non-starter. They will also be on high alert. Word
will have spread that someone is doing Credit Unions. That will make them
twitchy. I need some help on this one and sadly I can only think of one person
that might be up for it.

I’m off to see Martin tomorrow.

God help me.

For the bulk of my incarceration I had always thought
that Dupree had taken Martin out after I was sent down. Then I had the pleasure
of a new cell mate, a confidence trickster, who shared my cell for a few
nights. It meant there were three of us crammed in the room built for one but
the prison was bursting at the seams and there was hardly a union rep we could
complain to.

The con was called Gerald Crainey and in some distant
part of my brain his name rang a bell. At first he said little but on the third
night we were talking football and he came over all gobby. It turned out he had
been on the books for Celtic as a schoolboy.

‘I could have played for the first team, you know.’

He loved his football and to hack him off I told him I
was a Partick Thistle fan. He took the royal piss out of me but we got into it
over the 1971 game and, as I had learned over the years, it was a great way to
wind up some Celtic fans.