I had heard was out there. Again, I played out all my options in my head. It could simply have been the watchman again, making a second round of this part of the bonded area; or it could have been that the watchman had noticed the missing padlock and twisted bar on the door and had called the police.
I slowly unzipped my holdall. Just enough to put my hand in and rummage around until I found my sap. This was potentially a situation where I couldn’t win; if it was the elderly watchman, I’d have to use my sap judiciously. Too hard a blow and I’d end up facing a murder charge. Added to which, although I had an unpleasant propensity towards violence, I avoided using it against the totally innocent. If it turned out to be a copper, then I’d have to hit him hard and run for it. Hitting a City of Glasgow copper usually turned out to be a much more painful experience for the attacker; the boys in blue liked to hold a little reception for you in the station. Allegedly, it normally involved being stripped naked and wrapped in a soaking wet blanket. For some physiological reason beyond my ken, the wet blanket stopped bruising when twenty or so Highland lads set in about you with their boots and truncheons. The second painful element came judicially: police assault usually combined a prison sentence with corporal punishment. The birch. You would be tied to a table and thrashed with some dried foliage. Quaintly traditional but incredibly painful.
I considered my options and huddled beneath the desk. I heard the door opening. A torch probed the recesses of the Nissen hut for a moment. It switched off and the neon strip light above me fizzed and crackled into life.
‘You was right, Billy.’ The voice had a Highland lilt to it. A copper. Option two. I guessed ‘Billy’ was the elderly night watchman. ‘Someone’s broken the lock.’
A pause. I remained absolutely still beneath the desk, controlling my breathing, ignoring the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. All my time in Glasgow, I had avoided being charged with a criminal offence. I would do time for this. Unless I dealt with the copper and the night watchman.
‘All right…’ the unseen Highlander called out into the Nissen hut. ‘This is the police. I know that you’re in here.’ No you don’t, I thought… I could tell from the tone of his voice. ‘Show yourself now and don’t make any bother.’
Silence. I sat tight and silent. The sap was gripped so tight in my hand that I could feel the heartbeat in my fingers keeping time with the pulse in my ears.
‘Come on now… let’s not be having any silliness…’ Again the voice had the sound of someone who thought they were speaking to an empty room. I heard wood on wood: the lid on the reception counter folding over. He would be stepping through it, his baton drawn. Scottish police batons were made of Caribbean lignum vitae — one of the densest and strongest woods on the planet. Bone-crackingly and muscle-deadeningly hard. Whatever I did, I was going to have to avoid a blow to the head. I heard his boots now. He was at the desk in front of mine. He moved forward. One step. Two. His breathing, slow and deliberate. Not frightened. He moved something around. A chair or something. Three. Four. He was next to my desk, but couldn’t see me. Yet.
‘Nothing looks like it’s been disturbed,’ he said. ‘Maybe you frightened them off, Billy. Don’t look like there’s anyone here now.’ His boots ground grittily on the floor. He was looking around himself. Don’t look under the desk, I beamed the thought to him. Whatever you do, you big Teuchter bastard, don’t look under the desk.
‘Billy, you go and telephone the number you’ve got for the proprietor,’ he lilted. ‘I’ll stay here until he arrives.’
‘All right, Iain… I’ll do that.’ An older voice. Eager. Acquiescent to authority. Good, I thought, one less to worry about. But I’d have to make a break for it past the copper.
I heard the night watchman close the door as he left. The copper was still standing there only inches away from me. My mind sped through the options open to me. Barnier would take at least half an hour to get here, but there was no guarantee that another copper wouldn’t arrive in the meantime.
Suddenly, the desk above me creaked. I almost bolted from my hiding place but kept calm: he was sitting on the edge of the desk. There was the sound of a match being struck, then the smell of cigarette smoke. I heard a muted ping: a telephone being picked up. Dialling. The unseen policeman asked to speak to the duty sergeant and told him that he was attending an attempted break-in and gave the address. An attempted break-in. The idiot hadn’t searched the place properly but had decided there was no one on the premises. I silently offered heartfelt thanks to the City of Glasgow Police for recruiting from the Highlands.
My heart picked up a pace. I knew that I had to act as soon as he put the receiver down. He didn’t think there was anybody here and I could catch him off guard. But I was in the worst possible position from which to launch an attack. I hung onto every word he said into the telephone.
‘All right, Sergeant,’ he said. I heard the Bakelite clunk of the receiver in its cradle.
I was about to make my move when I heard the sound of pencils hitting the floor. There was a creak as the cop stood up from the edge of the desk. I guessed he had knocked the pencils off the table. Instead of rushing, I eased myself out from under the desk, making no sound. I turned and straightened myself up slowly. He was a uniform all right, and he was bent over, cursing poetically as only Highlanders can, gathering up the pencils. He stood up again and turned towards me.
He didn’t even have the time for surprise or shock to register on his face. I fetched him a blow across his left temple with my sap and he dropped to the floor. There was more calculation in that blow than Einstein had put into the theory of relativity: if I killed a copper then I’d hang. And if they couldn’t trace me, some other mug would swing for it. Justice had to be seen to be done. By the same token I needed him incapacitated long enough for me to make a getaway.
Looking down, I saw that he was stunned, rather than out cold. Perfect. I grabbed my bag, vaulted over him and out of the door, switching off the lights as I did. Anything to confuse my dazed sheep-botherer.
I saw ‘Billy’, the flat-capped night watchman, illuminated by the single lamppost, about a hundred and fifty yards off. He froze when he caught sight of me. I turned in the other direction and shouted to an imaginary associate already out of sight.
‘Run, Jimmy! It’s the watchy!’ I yelled, doing my best Glaswegian impersonation. I raced off towards where I’d cut the hole in the fence. I lobbed my bag over and commando-crawled through the gap I had cut.
I checked behind me: there was no sign of the constable and the elderly watchman would not risk chasing after two Drumchapel desperadoes.
I sprinted along the cobbled road and dived behind the bushes next to the railway alcove. One more check backwards: nothing. I took off the sweater and wiped my face with it, getting as much burnt cork off as possible. I threw my burglar kit into the boot of the car, put on my suit jacket and jumped in behind the driver’s seat. Keeping my lights switched off, I reversed out onto the main road. I drove slowly, with the lights still off until I reached the end of South Street. Only then did I pick up speed and switch the lights on. I drove into the countryside and out of the City of Glasgow Police jurisdiction. Ironically, I took the Greenock Road and passed only one car travelling in the opposite direction. At that time of night it was no surprise that the roads were dead and I wondered if the car I’d passed had been Barnier on his way in from his home in Langbank.
An idea flashed through my head: I would be passing Langbank and it was the one time I knew for sure that Barnier would not be at home. And I did have all of my housebreaking kit with me. I shook the idea from my head. I had no idea if Barnier lived alone or not, added to which I had had quite enough jolly japes for one night. I drove past Langbank and turned south onto a single track road that led through woods and fields. I found myself on the edge of a reservoir, its silky, still water reflecting the velvet clouds. There was a farmhouse at the head of the reservoir and I drove along the water’s edge until I was at the opposite end. Parking the car under some trees, I made a pillow out of the sweater I had worn. Despite the discomfort and the adrenalin still pumping through my system, I was asleep within minutes.
When I woke up I bad-temperedly tried to plunge back into sleep and recapture the dream I’d had: something about me and Fiona White and a new life in Canada. Or had it been me and Sheila Gainsborough? The aches in my neck and the insistent jabbing of the handbrake in my side forbade my return to my dream.
I creakingly unfolded myself. Looking in the mirror in the too bright morning light, I could see the burnt cork still ingrained in the creases and lines of my face: I looked like I was wearing Donald Wolfit’s stage make-up. Rolling up my shirt sleeves, I walked across the road to the reservoir’s edge. I scooped up some water and rubbed vigorously at my face and neck.
Once I was sure I was clear of all traces of my nocturnal adventures, I drove back into town. As I did so, I was pretty smug with myself. It was no small thing to have clobbered a copper, but I was convinced that by now Billy, the elderly night watchman, would have sworn on his mother’s grave that he had seen two burglars and one
