Goodmans of Glassford Street (14 page)

The smell of stale wine and decaying vegetables told him he was nearly there. Turning the corner of the derelict warehouse, he saw the glow of the fire bravely defying the cold and damp. Huge shadows lurched menacingly across the shabby brick walls, out of all proportion to the small and insignificant figures that huddled in protective sympathy around the burning timbers.

He called out a hoarse greeting to warn them of his arrival. They were all too easily scared these days, succumbing to the predatory attacks of thrill-seeking ‘neds’. The cold had already numbed his lips, making conversation difficult.

To grunts of appreciation, he struggled to release the bottle of Buckfast from the confines of his jacket, frozen fingers slipping hesitantly over the screw top, soon to release oblivion and acceptance.

Mr McKay took a swig of his wine and the men visibly brightened. One said, ‘Gie’s a swig o’ yer Buckie, pal.’

Mr McKay handed him the bottle. ‘Pass it round.’

The three men drank deeply from it before returning it to him. As he joined them on the cardboard, he surreptitiously wiped the bottle before putting it to his mouth again.

‘Have we seen you here before?’ the eldest of the group mumbled. His hair was long and dirty white and he looked as if he was wearing two or three coats, the top one tied round the waist with string.

‘Been out Springburn way. Walked in tonight.’

‘You must be knackered.’

He nodded, then took another drink before handing the bottle round again. They drank from it gratefully and he could see he was accepted as their friend as a result.

‘Where are you from yourselves?’

One of them said, ‘Edinburgh. But I couldnae get a minute’s peace there for the polis. Always movin’ ye on.’

‘Aye,’ the old man said. ‘At least ye get a bit o’ peace here, and there’s always the Salvation Army.’

‘Or the Quakers,’ the other man added.

‘What do they do? I’ve never come across them.’

‘Oh, ye will have, but they dinnae wear a uniform or anythin’, and they dinnae try tae convert ye, or save ye, or any carry on like that. They dish out soup an’ sandwiches most nights in the Square. I didnae know who they were either till I asked around.’

‘The Sally Army’s OK.’ The old man’s voice turned nasty. ‘They sometimes can get you a bed.’

‘I never said anything against the Sally Army.’

‘Here,’ Mr McKay interrupted. ‘Have another drink.’

‘What’s your handle?’ One of them wiped his mouth.

‘Eh?’

‘Your name – Dopey, is it?’

‘Oh. Mac. Mac’ll do fine.’

‘Well, yer Buckie’s smashin’, Mac. Warms the cockles of yer heart, so it does. You can come here any night, pal.’

After the bottle had done a few more rounds and was empty, their voices became slurred. They spoke about everything from football to their fond memories of relaxing in the comfortable warmth of libraries. The huge, domed Mitchell Library in Glasgow, the biggest reference library in Europe, had been their favourite.

‘Used to be great in there but now it’s all been gutted and changed. You don’t know where you are in it now or where to go. I went into it one day and there was nothing but paintings on the ground floor. Not a book or a comfy armchair in sight. I don’t know what they’re playing at. Not a book in sight, and before I could go upstairs and look there, a bloody security guard came and chucked me out.’

‘Undemocratic,’ Mr McKay managed. Although he secretly thought the guard had been quite right. Who in their right mind would want a filthy, flea-ridden tramp wandering about the place? He remembered that exhibition. Jenny had not really been well enough to go but she had insisted that he take her. If he remembered correctly, it was an exhibition of Avril Paton’s paintings. She was the one who had originally become famous for her paintings of Glasgow tenements. He liked those, but she had now branched out into modern stuff – none of which he either understood or appreciated. Jenny did, though. She loved them all and enjoyed the event. Afterwards, of course, she had been so exhausted and unwell, he had to send for the doctor. But despite this, she said it had been worth it.

He struggled to his feet. He hadn’t had enough wine to completely blot out his thoughts.

‘I’m away to try and get another bottle.’

‘Good man, Mac,’ was the general consensus.

He stumbled away.

It was strange how different Glasgow seemed after dark, especially late at night. There was an unexpected number of people walking around. Groups of young people laughing and talking. He’d heard that young people only went out after ten in the evening and gathered in discos and nightclubs to dance and drink away the night. Apparently, the busiest time for taxi drivers was three in the morning when the clubs all spilled out. One taxi driver had said that the drunk girls were worse than the boys. And once they were in the cab, he couldn’t get them out. Even in one case when a girl was sick in the cab but refused to be put out.

‘I’ll sue if you touch me,’ she’d threatened. ‘I’ll cry rape.’ Though Mr McKay doubted the police would believe a girl like that. The police, he believed, would be more likely to take the taxi driver’s word. There were lots of perfectly respectable and nice girls on the staff at Goodmans and he liked to cling to the view that girls should not all be tarred with the same brush.

There had been Goodmans Christmas dinners held in different places over the years for the staff. Mrs Goodman always picked the venue and he was always amazed at the number of excellent and interesting eating places there were in Glasgow, especially in the Merchant City area. Last year had been a real surprise for him. Mrs Goodman had booked them in at Arta – where the old cheese market had been. It had such an unimposing exterior and entry by a small wooden door. But once opened, it revealed a vast space where white Italian statues stood and a face on one wall spouted water. Upstairs, long tables had been set out for them. Give Mrs Goodman her due, he thought, she could be a bit eccentric and ruthless at times; nevertheless she was good to her staff. The thought never failed to plague him with terrible guilt. He should have gone down on his knees to the bank manager and pleaded for the necessary money, thought of some way rather than stealing from Mrs Goodman. But he hadn’t been thinking straight. He had been demented with worry and time had been fast running out. Even faster than he’d expected, in the end. He suffered guilt about that too. Moving Jenny from her own bed and having her travel across the city to a strange place had been too much for her. He had no doubts about that now.

He had done all the wrong things.

He couldn’t get the other bottle of wine quickly enough. He opened the bottle immediately and drank deeply, gratefully, from it. Then, somehow, he found his way back to where the other men were hopefully waiting.

‘Oh, here, ye’re a right pal, so ye are,’ they greeted him as he held out the bottle to be passed around. Later the men all dozed off under protective sheets of cardboard. He dozed too but he knew that somehow he had to get home so that he could have a bath and shave and try to make himself look respectable for starting work in the shop.

He had a terrible problem getting a taxi. He tried hailing several but no one would stop for him. Eventually he had to go to a rank and offer the driver the fare, plus a tip, before he would agree to let him into the cab. In Bishopbriggs, he practically fell out of the vehicle and was glad that the villa was comparatively isolated, with no next-door neighbours to see him. It was a terrible problem getting the key in the lock but eventually he managed it and stumbled into the house. How he hated it now! He made it to the bedroom and flopped onto the bed.

Mercifully, that was the last he remembered until morning. Then, despite his thumping headache and parched mouth, he bathed and dressed in his proper clothes, phoned for a taxi and arrived at the store late but thankfully before Mrs Goodman or the Bensons. The cleaners were standing outside, however, and not looking too pleased.

‘I’m sorry, ladies,’ he said as he unlocked the gates and pushed them back. ‘I slept in.’ Hastily he opened the other doors and switched on all the lights. Then he went up in the lift to his office and left his plastic carrier bag containing his shabby clothes on his desk. He was breathless and his heart was palpitating with rushing to get everything done, as he returned downstairs to check the rest of the staff arriving. Only Miss Eden seemed to notice his distress.

‘Are you all right, Mr McKay?’

He fiddled with his glasses and avoided her eyes.

‘Yes, fine, fine.’

‘You don’t look well at all.’

‘It’s just a headache, Miss Eden. And I’ve taken a couple of tablets. They’ll soon do the trick.’

She didn’t look satisfied and it was with obvious reluctance that she walked away and went upstairs to her office. Soon he realised he really needed to take something for his headache and he sent one of the juniors out for some painkillers. They helped a little and, after a cup of tea, he was able to go round and check every department. Then back upstairs, he made some phone calls before attending Mrs Goodman’s usual staff meeting. He shrank into a seat at the back, behind other senior staff members. He usually sat in the front row but he was afraid that Mrs Goodman, like Miss Eden, would notice his condition and question him about it.

However, Mrs Goodman seemed to have other things on her mind and the meeting was an unusually short one. She was quite abrupt, in fact, and there were murmurings as they left of ‘What was wrong with her?’

Later he was downstairs discussing stock in Jewellery when he saw Mrs Goodman hurrying away outside to a waiting taxi. She seemed quite agitated and he wondered then like the others what on earth could be wrong. It didn’t seem likely that it was anything to do with the store. Everything was fine as far as he was aware, except that Douglas Benson had been talking about modernisation, but that was his usual thing. He wondered if it was something to do with another member of her family – John Goodman, for example. He was always in some sort of hot water with his extreme views.

However, Mr McKay had enough to worry about, coping with his own situation. He must remember to buy another bottle of wine for tonight.

Miss Eden watched the three children who had walked in along with a respectable-looking couple. This was a trick of young shoplifters – to come in alongside adults in an effort to look as if they were family and avoid the suspicion that they would cause by appearing in the store on their own. She had caught children doing this more than once.

Today, as she watched them, she was wearing a blonde wig and a tan-coloured duffel coat. She kept quite a wardrobe of disguises upstairs in her office – not only clothes and shoes, but handbags, hats, scarves and wigs. There were also different kinds of cosmetics. As she had suspected, after a few minutes, the children separated from the adults and began sidling around the counters, peering at the goods and giving quick glances to see if anyone was watching them.

The trouble with young thieves was that they were fast runners. The moment they reached the doors, they were off like hares on a dog track. She used her mobile to alert the security guard at the door and surreptitiously followed the children. The ground floor was usually their favourite. For one thing, it was easier to make a quick escape from there. Also, most of the goods on the ground floor departments were smaller and easier to grab and carry or secrete in clothing – like jewellery, perfume, gloves, and so on.

This time they tried a new ploy. Two of them started a noisy fight, which distracted the assistants and the nearby customers, while the third child helped himself to the contents of a box of jewellery. Miss Eden immediately ran towards the boy but he saw her coming and was off like a shot. She flew after him, bashing open the doors and racing down Glassford Street to Argyle Street. Unfortunately, Argyle Street was packed with shoppers and it was easier for a child to nip in and out of the mob of people than it was for her. Soon she had lost him.

It was really infuriating, a bad start to the day. The favourite times for thieves of all ages were early morning and late at night. Early in the morning, the shop was comparatively quiet, and assistants all tended to be talking about what they’d done the night before. At the end of the day, they were tired, they were tidying up and maybe talking about what they were going to do that night.

Returning to the shop – still slightly breathless – she saw a woman enter carrying a large Debenhams shopping bag. This could mean she’d just come across from Debenhams where she’d made a perfectly normal purchase, and that was what the bag contained. On the other hand, it could be an empty bag lined with tin foil. If the bag was lined with foil, the alarm would not go off if she tried to take stolen merchandise out of the shop. The foil did something to the tag on the goods. Miss Eden watched the woman and, sure enough, upstairs in the fashion department, she saw her slip a couple of designer label dresses into the bag, then saunter away back to the lift. She joined the woman and stood at the back of the lift filled with customers and returned to the ground floor. Then she followed the woman while once again taking out her mobile to alert the security guard.

This time, with the help of the security guard, she caught the woman. Then it was up to the manager’s office. Mr McKay looked as if he had been asleep at his desk and had awakened with a start when she rapped on his door.

The police were sent for. Then there were the usual reports to be written up. Downstairs again, she got her eye on a man who answered the description that Frasers had passed about. There was always good cooperation between the detectives in other stores, and this call had described a man who had stolen from them in the past. He hadn’t got away with anything today, but no doubt he’d try another store. So she began following him around. Eventually he must have realised this because he faced her and said, ‘God, are you the store tec? A nice looking bird like you?’

Not long after that, she saw a young woman lift some cosmetics, followed her outside and stopped her. The woman immediately threatened, ‘I’m going to stab you with this needle.’