‘We have a positive id on one of
the targets. He has been taken care of and his PC is on the way to you.
We had a negative ID on two more but they also had to be removed. This will
increase the cost. We are looking for the last two and will call later.’
The line goes dead. Three people
dead. Even I swallow at that one. Hell of a price to pay for my peace of mind.
Two to go. I hope they get them quickly. At least I was down to one electronic
copy of the documents floating around out there. One soft and one hard copy.
The espresso machine lets me know
it is ready to pump steam through the beans. I froth and burble my way to
another hit of caffeine. I take the cup through to the den and switch on the
TV. Fifteen minutes of BBC News 24. Fifteen minutes of Sky News. There is
nothing on Leonard. I hit the internet. Leonard is living in cyber space.
The earlier story has been
updated with his name and a note that they are looking for his family. The
connection to Charlie through Cheedle, Baker and Nudge had been made. There is
a rough description of two individuals the police wanted to talk to. The
descriptions are vague. I doubt that ‘the Voice’s’ thugs are quaking in their
boots. I shout through to Quentin if the e-mail had been tripped. He says no.
Whoever Leonard’s other
electronic ‘strategic location’ is either haven’t caught up with the news or
are currently winging their way to the police to start singing. I could only
hope they were news shy. I haul my arse out of the chair. I go back in to see
the geek king. I tell him I am going out. I give strict instructions to contact
me as soon as he cracks the code. He nods. I tell him to call if the e-mail is
tripped. I think he says ok.
I leave. Fire up the car. I have
a mission on. It is time to break records cutting across the city. A light rain
is falling. Then again this is Glasgow - a city that really should have two
hundred names for rain. My grandmother, a veteran of Glasgow’s west end defended
the rain by telling everyone that it might rain a lot but at least it kept the
streets clean. She was right on both counts.
The traffic is thinning out on
the back of the rush hour but there is still enough to frustrate me. I see a
gap ahead. I squirt between a bus and taxi, raising horns and fingers. I shoot
an amber light. I haul the car into the left hand lane. I strip a layer of
rubber from the tyres as I round the corner. I lay my foot to metal and send a
surge through the three and half litre German power plant. The road slides
under me and I make the next three lights on green and the fourth zips past as
it trips to red.
I am running parallel to the
River Clyde. A river in transition. A river once famed the world over for
shipbuilding. A river now acting as a backdrop to new offices and luxury flats.
I flash past the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre - hugging the edge
of the car parks. The wheels complain as I pass the heliport and onto the
Clydeside Expressway. I plant my foot a little deeper - trying to work out a
balance between excessive and legal speed.
It had been while surfing the
internet that I had a blinding flash of inspiration. I knew, with huge
certainty, where Karen was. I had to be quick but if luck was with me she would
be ensconced in her mother’s flat in Whiteinch. Whiteinch was an old feeder
district for the Clyde shipyards up until their demise in the 60’s and 70’s.
Tonight was the night Karen went to see her mum. A ritual that she held to with
religious zeal - cutting meetings, phone calls and just about anything if she
thought she was going to miss her seven o’clock cup of tea with dear old mum.
It had been the reference to
Leonard’s family on the news item that had sparked the thought. God love my
mind. The sign for the Clyde tunnel looms up. I take the exit prior and down to
a roundabout. I zip onto the old road to Dumbarton and over the entrance to the
tunnel. I take a right. Karen’s mum lives on Medwin St. Two floors up in a
typical Glasgow tenement. I roar past what had once been the old swimming pool
and steamie.
The steamie was Glasgow slang for
the giant communal laundries that sat next to most Victorian built swimming
pools. In their time they had been the street cafés of their day. The centre of
local community life. Built of red sandstone they were places built in an era
when space was not a restriction but more of an opportunity.
I spot Karen’s 911 parked on the
other side of the road. I find a space and shoehorn myself in.
Karen’s mum is in her early nineties
and fiercely independent. Karen had been arguing for her to move into a home
for years. Her mum refuses point blank. I couldn’t see why Karen was pushing so
hard. I’d met her mum on a number of occasions. She had seemed in no more need
of an old folk’s home than me.
I can see the entrance to her
mum’s close. I can easily reach the car before Karen could get in and drive
off. I sit back and wait.
The instructions from ‘the Voice’
were clear. Jim and I were to drive to Charlie Wiggs, the vic’s home and wait.
If the vic didn’t turn up by eight o’clock we were to break in. I had argued
against this. Surely the vic would avoid his home if he knew he was being
hunted. ‘the Voice’ told me it was not my decision and just to get on with it.
I told him I wanted to call it quits and try and pick up the vic tomorrow but
‘the Voice’ wasn’t someone to rub the wrong way.
Jim is trailing behind me doing
his puppy dog thing but with a smile a mile wide. I have no idea what he was
doing round the Provand’s Lordship. I hate Planet Jim and try and stay away
from it at all costs.
We go back to the hospital car
park and pick up my car and I tell Jim to get out the A-Z and find the address
we need. Twenty five minutes later we are entering leafy suburb land.
Substantial sandstone terraced houses flash past flipping to semi-detached and
then detached as the price bracket rises. We hit a main roundabout and head out
towards the country. It is one of my favourite things about Glasgow. You’re
never far from green.
The vic lives in a new housing
estate on the edge of the city. The area is a maze of houses that look like
they have been poured from the same jelly mould. The pavements and the roads
around here seem to merge into the one slab of block-work and at times it is
difficult to know if you are driving where you should be walking.
Speed bumps and mini roundabouts
abound.
After a dozen false starts we
find the vic’s house - a fair sized detached villa that is far too close to its
neighbour for the price it no doubt costs. It is a split brick affair with
darker red bricks on the bottom and lighter yellow ones on top. The décor is
mock Tudor and there is a postage stamp of a lawn outside.
The rest of the front is taken up
by a driveway that you could squeeze two cars into if you are good at Tetris.
The garage doesn’t look big enough for anything larger than a motorcycle. I
choose a spot on the opposite side of the road but this is ‘car in driveway’
land not ‘car at the side of the road’ land and for all I know I might even be
parked on the pavement. But fuck it we have orders and if anyone asks they can
go take a running jump. At least I think that way for about ten seconds and then
re-start the engine and pull away. Jim asks what I’m doing. I drive out of
sight of the house and park up a couple of streets away.
I must have put on my thick head
this morning. We were buttonholed this morning with the other vic. We will be
on an ‘all points’ from the police and no doubt the current vic has been linked
to Leonard. After all the two vics came from the same company. If someone
reports us outside the vic’s house or the police do a drive by - as they no
doubt will when they discover Charlie has checked out of the Hotel Royal - we
are history.
I start the car again and go in
search of a quieter spot. I find it at the back of a rugby club. Typical of the
area. Rugby not football. I tell Jim to get our bags from the boot and we
change into more casual clothes and pack away our suits. We will need to go on
rotation for this one. But with care. We can’t cruise past the vic’s house in
the car too often. Twitchy curtains are the norm around here. We also can’t
walk by too often. The same curtains will be in action. So we will need to mix
it up. Me in the car. Jim on foot. Me on foot. Jim in the car and so on.
We will keep fifteen minutes
between passes and change between car and foot. If either of us sees the vic we
phone the other and rendezvous as close to the house as we can. If we do this
right there will always be one of us in the car and ready to roll.
If by eight o’clock there is no
sign of the vic we will move to ‘break in’ mode and search the place for the
documents. ‘the Voice’ doesn’t know what we are looking for so we are to lift
anything that seems relevant.
I drop Jim a short way from the
house and drive back to the rugby club. Fifteen minutes later I cruise out and
head for the vic’s house. I pass Jim returning to the rugby club and I keep
going and eyeball the target. All is quiet. I head back to the club and Jim
jumps in, lets me out and heads away.
We keep this up until just before
eight o’clock and then return to the car park to plan the break in.
The rain has stopped but it is
still bright daylight despite the hour. At this time of year it won’t get dark
‘till gone ten. We have no choice but to go in when it is light and a day
‘break in’ is far harder than a night time one.
On the walk/drive bys I’ve sussed
out the house. A shiny burglar alarm tells me this will be no walk in the park
but I’ve beaten alarms before and you would be amazed how many people don’t set
them. Better still maybe the vic is a cheapskate and the alarm is nothing more
than a decoy box.
I make a quick call to ‘the
Voice’ and get the heads up on the latest. Not that it helped. No sign of the
vic so the break in was on.
I figure there are two ways to
approach the job. Neither were on my recommended list and both are on the shit
end of risky.
The first is to find a weak point
- a window that is unlocked (climb in the window), a key left on the inside of
a door (smash the window and turn the key), a key left on a work surface (smash
a window and use a bent wire coat hanger to retrieve the key) - or just smash a
big enough window and you are in. This would sound like the obvious first port
of call except twitchy curtains can scupper you real quick if you spend too
long casing the house.
The second approach was more
direct. On the last trip round I had chanced my arm with a quick walk up the
vic’s driveway and a tug at the garage door and I knew we were in.
It is unbelievable how many
people leave the garage door open in this day and age. There is no guarantee
that the internal door between the garage and the house will be open or that it
will be easy to crack but with a closed garage door behind us we can take as
long as we like to get in. And in my experience if all else fails brute force
will eventually do the job. The tricky bit is getting us both in through the
garage in twitchy curtain land.
I leave the car as close as I can
without parking it somewhere that will raise questions. We walk round to the
vic’s house and I tell Jim what to do. This is all about speed. I can do fuck
all about anyone watching other than make sure the coast is as clear as
possible - after that we are down to luck.
At the driveway we turn and walk
up it as if we were heading for the front door. Just two visitors to Charlie’s
house. I give one last check and at least there is no one out on the street.
As I pass the garage door I reach
down, twist the handle and with a pull lift it clean open. Jim dives under and
I follow. We are in and I close the door. I wait for a shout but that doesn’t
happen very often. People just phone the police.
The garage is a shrine to
neatness and tidiness. The floor is brilliant white. The two walls either side
of us are empty but the wall at the back is racked and stacked with garage stuff.
The internal door sits at the far right of the back wall and looks very
promising.
It is a white wooden six panel
door. The sort that you meet every day inside a new house. As such it isn’t a
security door. Mistake.
The door opens in towards the
garage so I need something to lever it open. I search the racks and come up
with the very fellow - a crow bar. Some people must think they are invincible.
I stick the sharp end of the bar
in at the lock and put pressure on. The door creaks and then, with a splinter,
it gives. I push back on the door trying to keep any alarm contacts still
connected. If there is an alarm we will need to move quickly once the door is
opened. If not - well hallelujah.
I look round and make sure Jim
has the two holdalls we brought with us and tell him I am going to open the
door. I take a breath and pull the door a fraction. As soon as I do I hear the
tell tale beep, beep, beep of an alarm telling the owner to input the correct
code.
‘Move,’ I shout.
I grab a bag from Jim and we sprint
in. Jim heads for the stairs and I take the first door on the right. It is the
kitchen. A sterile world of stainless steel and granite - not cheap. Checking
my gloves are secure I pull out all the kitchen drawers but there is nothing
but culinary gear.
At the far end of the kitchen
there is a double door and I push my way through it and into a dining room that
opens out onto a conservatory at the back. Then the alarm goes off. I ignore
it. I could try and knock the box from the wall but nowadays alarms are
designed for that. Anyway the internal alarm keeps my mind focussed on getting
the job done at speed.