59 Minutes (12 page)

Walking down Queen St I turned onto
Royal Exchange Square
and then down onto
Buchanan St
- thank you
Glasgow
council for the foresight in introducing pedestrian
only zones.

Every few steps I looked back expecting to see the
pursuers but if they were there they were doing their best Ninja trick and keeping
out of view.

As I walked I considered my options. The hostel was
out. I had no idea who these jokers were but they knew where I lived and it
wouldn’t take a genius to stake out the hostel and wait for me. I had no one I
could turn to. My return to
Glasgow
had been as close to a secret as I could have made
it. Ron seemed an obvious mouth to have yacked.

It occurred to me that there might be another reason.
The gang of boys that had beat up on me had used my name a few times and maybe
the Mondeo gang and the beating weren’t unconnected.

I passed the subway entrance at St Enoch’s Square but
dismissed it as an escape route – even if I had wanted to I didn’t have the
money for the ride.

I crossed over
Clyde
St
and stepped onto the river walk that
runs along the north bank of the River Clyde. To my left was a suspension
bridge for pedestrians that had a claim to fame as the setting for some of the
movie
Gorky
Park
– it would seem that
Moscow
and
Glasgow
look
similar in some lights. I turned away from it and headed down river, ducking as
the walkway ran under one of the many bridges that cross the
Clyde
.

On the other side I began to walk slowly, watching the
brown carpet of water slide along beside me. There was no sign of activity on
the river. This far up, there never is. In the
Clyde
’s hey day it was entirely
possible to cross the river at this point by jumping from ship to ship. Now you
were lucky if you saw a duck paddling.

On the far side of the river some kids were trying to
hit a plank of wood floating mid stream with stones. I watched them for a while
wondering at where those days had gone: the carefree afternoons when the
riverbank transformed itself into one giant playground. The smallest of the
kids let rip with his right arm and scored a bull’s eye on the plank. A shout
went up and he high fived thin air for thirty seconds.

The tallest spotted me watching them and flicked me a
V before shouting something that was lost on the wind.

I think it rhymed with anchor?

I reached the
Kingston
Bridge
- a giant concrete structure that stretches sixty or
seventy feet above the river. I read once it was
Europe
’s busiest bridge and the
endless roar of tyre on asphalt did nothing to dispel the belief.

The bridge is a single span between two mighty piers.
On my side a sign telling me that Her Majesty the Queen Mother had opened the
bridge on
June 26th 1970
was embedded in the concrete. I was wondering what I
was doing on that day when I heard the slam of a door and turned to see the Mondeo
less than ten yards away and the two goons launching themselves in my
direction.

There are some things in life that you do that, on
reflection, were both genius and insanely stupid in the same breath. This was
one of those moments. I looked up and down the walkway but it was empty. I
could run but there was nowhere to go. The goons would be on me in seconds and
I knew this was not a
good
news event.

I flipped a mental coin and when the
coin dropped I sprinted for the fence that stops the innocent falling into the
river. In an instant I grabbed the handrail with my good hand, vaulted over and
began the plunge towards the dank water.

The drop was a good twenty feet and I
landed arse first and sank. My clothes combined with the cast began soaking up
the river and my descent refused to reverse. I thrashed my arms around to try
and pull me back to the surface. Somewhere deep down I realised that I was
making things worse and my survival instinct took over. With a kick of both
feet and tug of my good arm I headed up. When I broke the surface I hauled in
air like a stranded whale.

I looked up at the bank and I was
already fifty yards downstream. The dark waters were far from still when you
were in them. I could see the goons looking at me. They had no idea what to do
next and began to slowly walk down the river keeping pace with me.

The water was cold and I’m not a
strong swimmer. I knew I needed to get out and I struck out for the south bank.
As soon as I did this the current picked up as I crossed into the faster
flowing centre of the river. A quick look back and the goons
were
jogging to keep up. Ahead of me was the so-called
Squinty
Bridge
– one
of
Glasgow
’s newer river crossings. I needed to make the bank as quickly as
possible or the goons would cross over and be waiting for me when I emerged.

The water was foul. The
Clyde
might be a million times
cleaner than it was fifty years ago but it is still a country mile from being
drinkable. I spat out a mouthful and knew I would need industrial strength
mouthwash for a month to get rid of the taste.

The cold was starting to bite and I seemed no nearer
the far bank. I looked back but the goons were out of sight.

Seconds later I was swept under the bridge. I needed
to get out and even if the pursuers were waiting for me I was losing the battle
with the water and a kicking was marginally better than a drowning. I had no
choice but to claw my way to the bank and hope for the best.

Around me the river was hemmed in by a brick wall with
a set of steel runged ladders every couple of hundred yards. Even at high tide
there is still a clear ten feet between the river and the safety rails that run
next to the walkway. At the moment that was closer to fifteen feet.

The next set of rungs were coming up fast and I pushed
hard towards them. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to keep afloat much longer.

I was close to the bank and if the goons were above me
they were lost to view as the wall loomed up. The next set of rungs were twenty
feet down river and I was now skimming the wall, my good hand sliding along the
slime that coated everything.

I rushed towards the ladder.

The rungs were old and pitted and the lower ones were
covered in the slime. As I drew level I grabbed with my good hand but it slid
free. I threw my bad hand over the bottom rung and jammed my elbow into the gap
between metal and wall. I screamed at the pain as it stopped my downward
travel. I could feel the pressure building on my elbow joint as the river tried
to drag me away from safety.

Working against the current I pulled myself a few
precious inches closer to the ladder and launched myself at the next rung up. I
jammed my good arm in the gap between rung and wall and then let my weight fall
on it as I heaved in air. I needed to get my feet out of the water but a
combination of the river’s current and the way my arm was wedged tight had me
with my back to the wall.

I took a deep breath and let go with my right arm and
swung it high, grabbing for the next rung. At the same time I pulled hard on my
left arm and felt water slide from my feet as they came free of the water.
Every sinew in my body told me to let go as my wrist – already broken in
several places cracked. My feet flailed around to find a foothold and I slammed
my left foot onto a rung and clung on.

Ten breaths later and I straightened myself and
started to climb. My clothes had tripled in weight and the cold and exertion of
the swim was draining the last of my reserves. I reached the top rung and, as I
placed my good hand on the top rail, a face appeared above me and my heart
sank.

‘Not a nice evening for a swim, sir.’

I have never, and I mean have never, been so glad to
see a policeman’s uniform.

Just out of hospital and I can still taste the
Clyde
. I am on
a course of antibiotics that would protect an army in
Zaire
. The
doctor said it was precautionary. Given the shit in my mouth I reckon it is a
fucking necessity.

The police were hardly fazed by my dip. Once I told them
where I stayed, they assumed I was on drinks, drugs or both. Thankfully there
was no deep questioning and neither of them recognised me.

There was no sign of the goons when I got out and I
spent most of the time in the hospital planning a slow, and painful end to
Ron’s life. At the moment my favourite is skinning alive and dipping in a tub
of salt but I think I can do better. But the truth is I’m not sure it was him
that grassed me up. Not sure at all.

The Credit Unions are next on my to do list. I need to
go back into the breaking and entering business and that requires some serious
planning.

If I’m right about the goons and the kickings then
someone has it in for me and I suspect that the key is all part of it – but I
may be wrong.

I’ll have to case all three Credit Unions and suss out
the best way in. Priority one is a new toolkit. One that allows for
contingencies. The days of a stethoscope and sandpaper for your finger tips may
be long gone but a decent toolkit will still suffice for most needs. The only
problem with that is the price tag. I need cash and then I need to find a
source for the kit.

Cash first.

My options are as follows:

Mugging – but I’m out of practice and anyway some of
the people you think are fat, lazy or defenceless aren’t, and some people are
just penniless. Anyway who can go mugging with a buggered wrist? So that’s out.

A little bit of armed robbery – pick a corner store
and a weapon and we are away. Problem is I don’t have a weapon and you really
need a gun to do a shop job justice. A gun will cost more than a tool kit – so
that’s out.

Housebreaking – a racing favourite at the moment. Back
to school for me. The right house and I can purchase a small lock pick kit and
it’s time to roll. 

I have acquired a small lock pick kit with no need to
return to burglary.

My luck might be changing.

The computer geek put me onto it. There is a small
lost property cupboard at the back of the building. It rarely has anything in
it. Those that have little rarely lose things – and none of my fellow inmates
have more than a penny between them. However, on the odd occasion a new boy
rolls up and, fearing for his possessions, asks the staff to look after them.
They use the lost property cupboard as a safe place to store stuff. The guests
soon discover that their belongings are a dam sight safer under their bed than
under the watchful eye of the staff.

Not that the staff are dishonest but they are
careless.

The geek told me that a new boy had checked in. As was
my wont I ignored him until he also informed me that the new boy was an ex con
called Sid Montgomery.

Now I know a Sid Montgomery of old. Not by sight but
by reputation. He was a burglar much in the same mould as myself only he worked
the Solway coast. He had a good rep and a fondness for hard liquor. More than
once he had been caught in someone’s house; passed out with the contents of the
owner’s drinks cabinet in his stomach.

I did a bit of asking and it transpired that the Sid I
knew and Sid the new boy were one and the same.

It wasn’t the greatest piece of Sherlockian deduction
to figure he might be holding a kit on his person or in his bag.

Fortunately he had decided to hand in his bag and the
staff duly placed it in the lost property cupboard, as it was the only place
with a lock. A paperclip took care of the lock and a quick rifle of Sid’s bag
revealed a small but adequate tool kit. I pocketed it, returned his bag to the
cupboard and locked it.

I took the kit to the rear of the hotel and, placing
it in a plastic bag, buried it in the flower bed. If Sid reported the kit
missing they would turn the place upside down looking for it.

Sometimes it feels like I simply swapped one prison
for another. The lack of bars and guards seems to matter little. In my head I
feel as trapped as ever.

In my fourteen years as a guest of Her Majesty I had
dreamed of the moment that I would walk free the way a teenager dreams of his
first sexual encounter. Now I was out there seems to be no freedom in my
freedom. An ex con, no cash, living in a hostel – at least back in prison I had
hope. Out here hope should be piled high around every corner. I just don’t seem
to be finding the right corners at the moment but maybe Sid’s lockpick is a
start.

I’m off to case the Easterhouse Credit Union tomorrow.