THE ENGINE of the white Transit groaned as it was put under increasing pressure by the driver’s impatient handling of the wheel. The increasingly early daybreak was a problem that had put pressure on their plan, but there was no time for compromise and the lucrative nature of their trade meant that chances had to be taken.
The man in the front passenger seat sat motionless, looking out of his window as an ethereal mist lifted from the hillside on either side of the Stockiemuir Road. On his lap rested a sawn-off shotgun.
From the back of the Transit came two voices, one rough Glaswegian, the other accented in a manner that pointed to the speaker’s Eastern European roots, filled the air, “Nervous, Jammy? How you sweat, my friend, when ground outside is still to lose frost?”
“Fuck off, Tomasz, unless you want to find out just how nervous I can get with a crowbar in my hand and a smart-arsed Pole in my face at 5.30 in the bleedin’ mornin’.”
The exchange in the back of the vehicle at last brought motion to the front passenger’s lips, “Shut the fuck up, the pair of you, and listen to me,” barked the man with the shotgun. “We have five miles until we reach the farm so let’s run through the plan one last time.”
The authority in the gang leader’s voice brokered no dissent in the ranks of his gang and the driver echoed Drummond’s words, “Aye, Joe’s right, give it a fuckin’ break. The pair of yous have been at it hammer and tongs since we left Glasgow and you are doin’ my fuckin’ napper in.”
Drummond shot his driver a withering sidelong stare. He did not need his authority over his crew reinforced, not even by his number two, but he could understand the irritation experienced by Frankie Grimes. After all, this would be the biggest raid they had mounted yet. With the goods and the cash kept on the premises they could be looking at a six figure haul.
But Drummond was concerned that the spate of robberies they had mounted over the last six months was beginning to attract headlines and that made him edgy. The bickering that had blighted their trip towards the farm outlet underlined the fact he was not the only one feeling the heat. Drummond was determined there would be no fuck-ups because after two more raids he would have the readies to set up a new life on the Costa del Sol as the bar owner he’d always wanted to be. Fuck Glasgow and the constant rain that did his nut in. He wanted sun on his back and senoritas underneath his belly and he had it all planned. Two more raids, three at most and he would be off and the rest of the gang could take a flying fuck to themselves.
“Now, listen to me, you fuckers. This is the biggest job we will have pulled yet. Do it right, clean out the wedge from the safe and we’ll be on easy street. Just what all of us wants from this bleedin’ business.”
“Whit’s that, gaffer?” asked the vacant voice of Jammy Gilles.
“A better life for your weans and your missus, surely, Jammy? You want to be jumpin’ about in the middle of the night at the arse end of the universe for the rest of your natural? Ya half wit!”.
The silence from the rear of the Transit suggested that Jammy – nicknamed thus for his particularly annoying habit of winning virtually every competition he ever entered, via the back of the cereal packets that provided the staple of his diet – did not.
“I thought not,” added Drummond. “Right, one more time, here we go. Frankie?” and Drummond turned to his number two.
“Right ye are, boss. I drop Jammy a mile before we come to the farm road turnoff and he gets the transport motor. Then it’s down the farm road and you and Tomasz get dropped to make sure the hoose next to the outlet buildings is empty and I smash the motor through the shutters and immobilise the alarm,” said Grimes with no emotion.
“Tomasz?” asked Drummond.
“I check house, make sure boss man not playin’ hide the sausage with the missus and when we have all clear you follow in, boss. Then locate safe as in drawing my brother Janek supply us with.”
“Excellent,” said Drummond before continuing, “Once we’ve found the safe you then leave me and join Frankie and Jammy,” Drummond shot Gilles a withering glance to make sure he had his attention from the back of the van. “Then make sure that every prime cut of meat in the place is bagged and deposited in the Luton Jammy will have parked outside. Then what?” demanded Drummond in his grating Glaswegian voice.
This time Gilles spoke up, “Then we get the Transit disengaged from the shutter, douse with petrol and torch the fucker!”
“So, girls, you have been listening,” said Drummond with a hint of a smile. He swept his three subordinates with a stare that left them in no doubt his mind was focused on the business in hand.
The transit was now slowing as it reached Jammy’s drop off point and as it pulled to a stop Drummond handed out the stocking masks before once again ramming home his message, “Now listen to me, you half wits, this is the biggest one yet and the information we have from Tomasz’s Polish fuckin’ Christmas tree workers is that the owner and his missus hit the casino on Wednesday night and stay over in Glasgae town. So the whole place should be empty bar a guard dog, and I have brought a wee treat along for him,” said Drummond, pulling out a pork chop that radiated a blueish tinge.
Spotting the look of mystification spreading across his gang’s faces Drummond added, “Two drops of anti-freeze and Rover’s kidneys are crystallised in moments.”
Jammy could not help himself, “That wid be a case of Rover and oot then, boss,” he said with a wink.
Grimes snarled, “Keep yer mind on the joab, Jammy, or I’ll carve ye a nice little Mars bar down the other side of your puss.”
“Quiet,” hissed Drummond, “The info we have from our Polish friends is that the house is empty, but if it’s not, what happens next?”
Tomasz was next, speaking through the stocking mask he peeled back to his forehead, “Tie ‘em up and gag ‘em, gaffer and maybe, if the bitch is there, we have some fun. My brother, he tell me she was a cow to him and fired him minus last pay packet, how you say boss, a ton light.”
Drummond’s right hand shot through the space between the vehicle’s two front seats and grabbed the Pole’s throat, “Listen to me, you Polak bastard! If any harm comes to anyone, the only job you will be up to will be as the new fairy on top of next year’s Christmas tree. I am two hauls away from sun, sangria and sex, and you and no other son of a Polish whore is going to stop me gettin’ there!” For effect Drummond ripped out the Beretta he had hidden inside his anorak and rammed it under Tomasz’s chin, “I’m not sure about you, Pole. You would do well to remember you are only with us because of your connection with our buyers, and the information we got through your brother. You only get one chance with us. Fuck it up and you won’t make it back to Glasgow. Understand?”
Tomasz’s eyes watered at the pressure of the handgun pushed up under his chin but he managed to nod his head.
Drummond put the gun away as the van pulled to a stop and the bang of the back door confirmed that Jammy had exited, en route to collecting the Luton van, nicely painted up with the markings of a local removal company.
“Let’s get ready to rock,” said Grimes and they turned down the farm road.
10
JOHNNY BALFRON tossed uncomfortably in his bed as shards of morning light filtered through the bedroom curtains. Propping himself up on one elbow he looked down at Sophie and could not help the smile spreading across his face.
Childhood sweethearts, they had married a year after graduating and devoted their lives to building up the Balfron family business which specialised in supplying the very best game and meat available from the Scottish countryside.
Given that the 150 acres of rich farmland he had inherited from his late father Edward was teeming with wildlife, it had not taken Balfron and his wife long to develop their business into one that produced a seven figure annual turnover. By diversifying into other interests, harvesting the local pine trees to such good effect that the festive season produced a healthy boom period, such was the business done through the sale of the Balfron
House Christmas trees, that Johnny Balfron’s business couldn’t have been better.
Yet still something gnawed at him. That business with the Polish worker and Sophie back at the turn of the year meant the certainty he’d known every day with her since they met 23 years back was now a fragile one. It had been Sophie’s idea to tap into the cheap Polish labour market and when it came to farm labouring, Balfron had to admit she had been right. The Poles were punctual, efficient, hard working and polite, and had become immensely popular with the outlet’s middle class clientele.
He thought back to the day he had returned early from a banking trip to Glasgow and found Sophie alone in the Christmas grotto with the Polish worker called Janek, colour high in her cheeks, her silky brown hair slightly dishevelled. Sophie had later explained she had been helping to clear the hay from the marquee which they used to feed the goats and other wildlife that were a major attraction for his customer’s kids, but something had jarred with Balfron over an explanation that had been a little too laboured. A week later Janek and the three other Polish workers who had been with them for almost a year were dismissed by Sophie. She claimed they had been pilfering the produce.
Watching her sleep peacefully in the increasing morning light, Balfron recognised that the cause of his sleeplessness since that day was that he could no longer trust his wife. The perfect harmony that had previously underpinned their relationship had gone forever. In its place were rows that were becoming more and more acrimonious.
Their regular midweek luxury trip to Glasgow for a show and late supper at the casino, planned for the previous night, had fallen victim to an argument which had become particularly vicious after Balfron, his tongue loosened by too much Malbec, had finally snapped and given voice to his suspicions.
Sophie had dismissed his accusations and stormed off to bed and now here she lay, so beautiful, so peaceful and how he wanted her, ached for the all-consuming happiness he had taken for granted before the episode in the grotto with ‘that bastard Pole’. Balfron found himself mouthing the profanity silently.
Drinking in her dark beauty even now, in the first year of her second half-century, she was still a head-turner and Balfron was honest enough to admit to himself that if his prospects had not been quite as bright all these years before, perhaps she would have looked elsewhere. He had also faced up to the fact that she had a roving eye, but until that incident with Janek, Balfron had never had cause to suspect that it had been more than just that.
As Sophie groaned in her sleep, Balfron felt his feelings of suspicion replaced by a more powerful emotion as the passion for the wife he knew would not leave him, until death did them part, surged through his body. As he leant forward and slowly kissed her, drinking in her smell, he heard the coarse sound of a diesel engine growing ever stronger.
Parting from Sophie’s luxurious lips, he saw that she had still not fully wakened as he jumped out of bed; peeling back the curtain and looking out onto the red chip drive just as the white transit pulled to a stop.
11
BALFRON WAS immediately hit by a sense of foreboding as his gaze took in the vehicle that had come to a stop 100 yards from his farmhouse. He suddenly remembered an article he had read in the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald which had carried a police warning about butcher’s shop robberies. He knew that Balfron Mill wasn’t typical of the places that had been hit, the question that now gnawed away at him was, who would want to pitch up before 6am on a Thursday morning, unscheduled and uninvited?
Balfron was now already halfway down the staircase and making for the locked cabinet where he kept his shotguns. He had worked too damned hard and too damned long to make his business the success it had become. He was taking no chances. As he removed the shotgun he heard a sudden bang on the front door. Balfron knew he had been right to take the precaution.
Tomasz levered the crowbar into the door frame just as the transit smashed into the shutters, instantly triggering the alarm. The door gave way under his boot and his shoulder, but as it sprung open the sight that greeted the robber was one that left him blinking in disbelief.
Balfron stood in the hallway, dressed in his silk Paisley pattern pyjamas with a shotgun cocked against his shoulder and two manic eyes spitting fury at the robber. The Pole was immobilised in the doorway, paralysed by fear and shock until Drummond cannoned into his sidekick, and as he did so the movement spooked Balfron and his finger pulled the trigger. Tomasz was lucky that he had started his descent onto the floor before Balfron had fired. Drummond was not so fortunate. He had taken the Pole’s place in the doorway and the shotgun blast struck him full on, smashing him back out of the door and onto the cinder.
The Pole was too concerned with his own safety to worry about his gaffer, the sound of whose agony filled the air behind him. Rolling over onto his side Tomasz scrambled through a doorway into a room that proved to be the kitchen. Panting with fear and seething anger the Pole wildly looked around for something he could use as a weapon. Next to the kitchen sink was a knife block and he grabbed the two biggest blades, just as he heard a footfall behind him and a female voice shouting from the floor above, “What the hell is going on, Johnny?”
Tomasz spun round in time to see the silk of Balfron’s pyjamas take on an ethereal glow from the early morning sunshine filtering through the kitchen window. The ominous shape of the shotgun being brought to bear in his direction sent him diving for cover behind the kitchen table.
Balfron seethed with a righteous rage and kicked a kitchen chair out of his way before aiming the shotgun, but the Pole had scurried across the floor and under the table. Sheathing the two blades in his belt he rammed upwards, lifting the table up and smashing it into Balfron. For a second time the shotgun went off and this time the blast hit the kitchen ceiling as Balfron was knocked onto his back by the blow from the table. Tomasz stood over him and Balfron’s eyes locked into the hate-filled orbs of his assailant.
“Skurwysn!” he spat in his mother tongue and wrapped both his hands around either end of the shotgun before smashing his forehead into Balfron’s face.
The blow exploded Balfron’s nose and loosened his grip on the shotgun, allowing the Pole to rip it free and throw the gun across the kitchen floor. Tomasz whipped out the two blades bringing them to rest on either side of Balfron’s exposed neck.
“Swinia ty spierdolic!” raged Tomasz once more before adding in English, “Yes, you fucked up bastard, now I make you pay.” He pulled the blades away from Balfron’s neck and for a moment the estate owner thought he would escape with his life. But Tomasz crossed the blades, clamped them on either side of Balfron’s neck and ripped them across his skin with all the force he could muster. Geysers of blood shot from the gaping wounds in Balfron’s throat and spurted all over the Pole’s face.
“Diabel,” spat the Pole as Balfron’s eyes became permanently vacant.
Sophie Balfron entered the kitchen just in time to see her husband breathing his last.
Tomasz looked up and smiled malevolently before spitting out, “You whore,” as he jumped off Balfron’s convulsing body and advanced on his wife.
“Fucking slut! You think you have my brother’s Polish cock, have your fun with it then throw him aside when you finish? Rip him off and bitch him for thief then get away with it?”
Sophie’s eyes were wide with terror and she stammered in shock, “I, I, I . . .” but Tomasz was keen to help. He rammed one of the blades into the kitchen table and gazed at it as it quivered in the pine. He grabbed her dressing gown. Ripping it free to reveal a black silk camisole, Tomasz brought the serrated, bloody edge of the other knife up to her pale skin, “You fuck my brother Janek? Then you call him thief when you tired of Polish cock, no?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” sobbed Sophie in desperation as her mind replayed her romps in Santa’s grotto with the young Polish worker. A bit of fun gone wrong, that had brought her marriage to breaking point before the events she had just witnessed had ended it forever.
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With his free hand Tomasz smashed a backward blow across her face that threw her onto the kitchen table, her head resting only inches away from the knife blade. Her eyes strayed to its glinting steel and her mind registered the opportunity to give herself a way out of this hell she had walked into. But as she tried to grab the blade she found the angle she lay at made it impossible to pull the knife free, and hope died within her as Tomasz once more closed on her. Tossing the other blade aside he wrapped both his hands around her wrists, smashing them onto the table.
“You forget how much you like Polish sausage bitch? We call it kielbasa back in Warsaw.” Ramming his groin into her, he prised her legs apart as she stuggled with all her might to try and escape the horror that was coming her way.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, it was just a bit of fun and then . . .” She was cut off as the Pole clamped his jaws on her mouth and began to kiss her with a wanton hunger before he pulled back and seared her with his hate-filled eyes, “You are pathetic.”
He grabbed the other knife, ripping it free from the tabletop and pushing its tip into the top of her camisole. A laugh of chilling cruelty escaped his mouth, “Uśmiech!” said Tomasz and ripped open her nightdress. Sophie closed her eyes and prayed in silence.
12
“WHAT THE fuck are you doin’?” screamed Frankie Grimes, as his eyes took in the scene before him.
Tomasz turned round, but continued to pinion Sophie Balfron to the table. “What you think, old man? I take revenge for my brother,” he spat.
“Not here you don’t, you fuckin’ maniac. What do you think that bastard over there is?” demanded Grimes, gesturing towards Balfron’s corpse, “A fuckin’ mirage? Get the hell off her and get her out of here and into the back of the van. Christ, how much time do you think we have before the cops are out here? The alarm is bound to be hooked up to some alert system. Plus Drummond is bleedin’ his guts out at the front of the farmhouse. We need to go, Tomasz, and if you don’t get moving now I will personally blow your brains out, you Polish motherfucker.” With that Grimes produced a handgun from inside his quilted jacket, took a step forward and pointed the barrel at Tomasz’s head.
The Longest Shadow Page 5