For Those Who Know the Ending

by Mackay, Malcolm

  Gregor was standing out in the corridor chewing a finger when Nate emerged. The bag over his shoulder still looked as full as it had going in. That was because Nate had put a bundle of books in there as well, this way anyone who cared to watch him going in and out wouldn’t notice a difference.

  ‘You’ll look around though?’ Gregor asked. ‘I’m not being a wimp here, I’m just asking, because, well, if this place gets hit, I get the blame.’

  Nate looked down at him, saw the fear in him. Fear of failure, fear of letting Jamieson down. Fear of catching the violent blame if Jamieson was pissed off about it. It was good that he was afraid, made him more alert to genuine problems. He was only half-right about where the responsibility would fall. Yes, he would get some of the blame if the place was targeted. It was his business; he had a duty to make sure nothing went wrong here. But the person who would carry most of the blame would be Jamieson’s security consultant. Mr Nate Colgan.

  ‘I’ll check around,’ Nate said.

  Gregor was obviously just relieved that he had passed the message on. Now he could say, if something did go wrong, that he had done his bit, he had warned someone clinging to a higher link in the chain. In Gregor’s mind, it became that more senior person’s problem to deal with. Wouldn’t provide much protection for a man as junior as Gregor, sure, but it was something.

  Nate left the bookies and made his way out to the car. Slung the bag onto the passenger seat and looked up and down the street. Nothing stood out. There were people around, but it was a sunny afternoon and this was a fairly busy commercial street. At a glance there wasn’t anything that looked like a threat. Nobody hanging around a doorway, nobody sitting in a car. There was nothing that should make a smart man nervous. Nate drove away. The day was too short and he was too busy to hang around chasing the ghosts of Donny Gregor’s limited imagination.

  That ghost, it gnawed away at him though, chewed on the back of his mind just long enough for Nate to need to do something about it. Gregor was no squealer; he didn’t go running for protection every time some bastard looked at him funny. As far as Nate knew, this was the first time he had ever raised a security concern. Might not have been much to raise a concern about, but it was still the first time his bottle had rolled off its shelf and hit the floor. Which led to a different train of thought. Maybe Gregor was involved in a set-up. Maybe he was giving out this info because he was planning to clean the place out and pretend someone else had hit the bookies in his absence. He wouldn’t be the first who tried that little trick. Jesus, first person you look at when money goes missing is the person who was supposed to be looking after it, that’s just common sense. Never trust a man who’s already in the industry.

  Problem with that theory was that it didn’t add up. Gregor wouldn’t have thrown out something that vague as a cover for an inside job, you need detail to protect you. Something that points a damning finger at a certain person, someone that’s already not trusted therefore easily incriminated. Gregor would know people he could incriminate; people that the Jamieson organization would be only too happy to blame. He hadn’t done that. Even he, desperate and not planning well, would have more sense than to wrap his cover story in such a thin blanket.

  All of which brought Nate back to the realization that Gregor might actually have been on to something. Perhaps people were watching the place, getting ready to hit it, and maybe they weren’t as dumb as Gregor made them sound. Let’s say, just for the fun of it, that they were watching the place every day. It’s a busy street, there’s parking nearby and once you go too far down the street you don’t have a proper view of the doorway. Not an easy target to watch without being seen. So how would you go about it? You’d park your car there, watch the place a little, and leave the car empty most of the day. Watch from a different spot, the car left unattended to make it look like the vehicle belonged to a regular Joe, using the parking space while they went to work nearby. It wasn’t a bad little strategy, actually. Sort of thing someone who had really thought this through might go for.

  Final question. Why would someone watch it that long if they were planning to hit the place? It’s a bookies, there’s not an awful lot to watch before you learn the routines. You work out ways in and out and you work out who’s going to be there at certain times of the day or night. You suss out the basics and then you hit the bloody place, not much more to it than that. Gregor was talking like this super-spy had been lurking on his doorstep a long time. Probably more than a week, certainly since before the weekend. What were they waiting for? Hard to think of anything other than the two wads of cash Nate had just put in the safe.

  6

  Martin had the gun tucked into the side of his jeans. Wasn’t where he wanted to put it, he would have preferred it in his inside coat pocket, but either the gun was too big or the pocket was too small. Wherever the issue, size mattered and this was bad planning. He thought he had used the coat before, back home, on jobs. He was sure a gun that size would fit in the inside pocket, but this one didn’t and it was too late to go buying a new coat. Too late because the job had started.

  He was in a back alley, walking tight against a tall wall, keeping himself wrapped in shadow. Hardly necessary, the place was almost pitch black, but shadow is always a welcome accomplice. There was little light in the alley, which made it more difficult to count the buildings as he made his way down. Had to make sure he found his way into the correct one. Breaking into the wrong building on his first job in the city would make Martin Glasgow’s new punchline.

  He pushed open a metal gate and stepped silently inside. Looked like the right place. Martin fiddled with his balaclava, making sure it was properly in place. Hated these things, how anyone could use them regularly was beyond him. Focusing on the wrong things. It was strange, his mind always raced when he worked a job, always wandered off into irrelevant areas, like it wanted to think about anything other than the rather important task at hand. Some people, back home, had said that they found an incredible focus when working jobs, like the rest of the world melted away and the only thing that existed was the target. That sounded like bullshit to Martin; his adrenalin pushed and pulled his mind in every direction it shouldn’t go, and he had worked every sort of job you could think of.

  There was a burglar alarm, but no chance that it would be switched on yet. The back door would be locked, but the building wasn’t empty. There was a metal grill covering the front of the shop now that it was closed for business, and a metal gate covering the back door that was left open because people needed to leave through it. The manager was still in there, that was vital. Martin needed the manager to help him along. He crept up to the back door and paused, listening for anything that should worry him. There was a frosted window on the back door, no light visible behind it. One man, and hopefully only one man, was in the building. So just because you can’t see anything, doesn’t mean nothing’s there. That’s why Martin was standing in perfect silence, his ear almost touching the door, holding his breath. Nothing.

  He took the gun from the side of his jeans. Hadn’t been a problem having it there so far, but escaping with it would be more of a challenge. He would have a bag of cash to occupy one hand on the way out. Or at least, he should have a bag of cash, if this went as planned, and he would be in much more of a hurry. The thought of running in unfamiliar streets, a bag of stolen cash in one hand and a gun in the other. His mind racing ahead to all of those worst-case scenarios. Focus. Stay in the moment, that was what they said. Stupid thing to say, if he didn’t look ahead, how could he see the trouble looming?

  He held the gun in his gloved hand, the barrel pointing back at himself. One last look around before he made his first move. Once he started, there was no stopping until he was finished or flattened. From this moment on, everything had to be done at speed and without error. The intimidating first step, he thumped the butt of the gun against the glass. The glass cracked. Another thud, just as hard, in the same place. Holding the gun carefully. A sma
ll break, tiny shards of glass falling inside the two panes. Martin thumping again, breaking a proper hole this time, using the butt of the gun to smash a big enough hole to fit his small hand through. Carefully reaching in and turning the lock on the inside of the door.

  Now moving fast. The door open and he was into the dark back corridor, working against the clock. Martin moved with the gun held out in front, the first thing that would be visible to anyone that stumbled across him. Pushing open a door and finding an empty storeroom. Round the corner in the corridor. The manager was bound to have heard that smashing glass, bound to have reacted to it in some way. Maybe calling the man who delivered the money, or grabbing a weapon of his own. Martin needed to get to him before he could.

  It was these moments, late at night, that Gregor was starting to hate. He did it every night, alone in the dimmed room, sorting out the books before he went home. Doing it in small bursts like this meant not having to stay deep into the dark hours to do it all at the end of the week. He had more to compute than simply what had come in and what had gone out, he had to make sure there was sufficient leeway within those figures for creative accountants to flush a little dirty money through. Not much, because they were careful, but enough gaps for Jamieson’s money men to fill in.

  Sitting in the grim little office where he spent too much of his life. It was a step ahead of working the counter, a job he increasingly hated. If he could pluck up the courage, he would try and find a way to get out, start a new life somewhere else. Gregor didn’t have the guts, and was smart enough to know he never would. Couldn’t even fool himself into thinking there was better to come.

  He was sitting at his desk, back to the door, tapping at his laptop and filling in boxes on a spreadsheet. There was a flicker in the back of his mind as he typed, the thought that he’d heard an echo that shouldn’t have been there. He paused, leaning back in the swivel chair, rubbing his eyes. Heard it again, not an echo but a thud, coming from the back of the building. His heart began to sprint, Gregor holding his breath and praying that he wouldn’t hear anything more. A louder thud, and the tinkle of falling glass.

  His first instinct was that of a sensible man, the instinct to get up and run. This place wasn’t worth the danger of facing down an attack. Before he’d got to his feet the realization that he might step out of the office and into the arms of the intruders. Then the memory of Nate Colgan, and the fear of what that man would do to Gregor for running. So he went for plan B, grabbing the phone. Colgan’s number was stored on it. Sweating hands grabbing the phone, pressing the button to call him, holding the phone to his ear as he heard movement over broken glass.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Nate, it’s Donny, they’re here.’ He paused as he heard someone push down the handle of his office door.

  Pushing open the first door round the corner and finding a dim light on. A lamp on a desk, the middle-aged man he’d watched over the last week was sitting hunched, a phone in his hand. He wasn’t speaking, had the phone away from his ear and was looking round at the door. Martin moved fast. Three steps to reach the man and one closed fist to punch the phone out of his hand. Picking it up, making sure the line was dead before he dropped the phone on the desk with a clatter. The man looked terrified already.

  That wasn’t good.

  Martin needed Gregor to be useful, needed him to have his head screwed on, to work quickly and calmly if this was going to be the fast job intended. The fact he was sweating and panting before they’d even started didn’t bode well. Martin made sure he could see the gun, but was careful not to point it directly at him, that would invite further panic. The man was sitting down at his desk, a few folders, a bundle of newspapers and a laptop in front of him. Martin reached out and closed the laptop, killing the glow from the screen and the possibility of a webcam. He looked around the office, no security camera visible. A few steps to the office door and he closed it. All done in silence.

  It had occurred to him, many times, that the silence was almost as incriminating as talking. If he had a local accent then he would surely talk, blab out instructions without fear that his voice would give him away. Which meant the people investigating this would realize that he wasn’t local. Of course, if he talked, they’d be able to narrow their search down much more. Still, silence wasn’t a perfect solution.

  And it wasn’t the police he was worried about; their forensic minds had no part to play in this. They would never even find out that this robbery had taken place. There would be no crime reported, he was sure of that much. Even in his worst moment of panic Gregor wasn’t going to do his civilian duty and call the police to report a crime. He would have been using that phone to try to call the people who worked for the Jamieson organization. They would send their toughest round to try and find out what had happened. These would be brutal men, men determined to send a message to any potential future robber by visibly annihilating this one. Martin had seen the sort before. Had seen, and delivered, the sort of punishments that this crime would inspire. These were punishments to fear.

  He and Gregor were alone in the office, the door closed, the world reduced to the shape of the walls around them. Martin stood, looking down at the sitting Gregor, trying to judge the prospect of this man doing something very stupid. The bookie had his mouth open, one elbow on the table with his hand reaching up to his forehead, his other hand on his lap. That was the one Martin needed to watch for trouble. The hand on the forehead was the purposefully visible distraction; the hand on the lap was the one most likely to make a grab for something sharp or heavy.

  Martin stood right in front of him, closer than was really decent. Time to establish power, quickly, if he could. He reached down and grabbed Gregor by the collar of his shirt and forced him to stand up. It would be wrong to say Martin lifted him, Gregor weighed significantly more than the younger man, but he got him up. Ran a hand down each side, checked his pockets and his trouser legs. There was nothing there that posed any threat. Martin shoved him back down into the seat, using more force than he needed to because he wanted Gregor to realize that this was a man casual in his approach to violence. Make the person understand that the default setting is aggressive, so if they step out of line they can expect a severe reaction.

  Now it was time for the note, the simple instruction he had written out on Joanne’s laptop and printed. He had read it again and again, making sure that it was acceptable. Martin was painfully aware that his sentences were shaped differently to those of a local person. Without realizing, he might misplace a word or emphasize something that nobody speaking English as a first language would. That’s why he had kept it so simple, why he had been so careful with the wording.

  OPEN SAFE. TODAY’S MONEY FROM JAMIESON.

  That was it. That was all it said, all it should need. It seemed simple and clear to him, seemed like the sort of thing a local might write to get their point across with the least fuss. Close enough to a good effort that it wouldn’t identify him, anyway. He took the note from his pocket and passed it down to Gregor.

  Donny Gregor sat there, in his chair, note in hand, looking up at Martin. Didn’t react, didn’t move, didn’t even read the note at first. Sat there with his mouth still slightly open, apparently frozen in time by the shock of the event. It might have been fear, that can do silly things to smart people, but Martin suspected otherwise. His instinct told him that this was a man deliberately killing time. He needed to understand that he was killing something that didn’t belong to him.

  Martin swung the gun lightly, last thing he wanted to do was knock the man out before he’d opened the safe. He caught him, just solidly enough, on the lower jaw. Gregor went into full stuntman mode, rolling off the chair and onto the floor, clutching his mouth and groaning like a train had just ploughed through the office and into his face. Martin groaned in disgust, just a little. Not because of the inconvenience, you don’t expect your victim to bend over backward for you when you’re trying to rob him blind. He groaned because of wha
t this told him. Gregor was wasting time because he knew someone was coming. There was an ugly little plan lurking in the wings of this pantomime. The line on the phone might have been dead by the time Martin got to it, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been life in it a few seconds before.

  Martin knelt down beside Gregor and shoved the gun at his face. He wanted to get it in Gregor’s mouth; nothing scared a person more than tasting the gun that might just kill them. He missed the mouth; Gregor seeing what Martin was trying to do and quickly getting back up to his feet, hands raised slightly. All thoughts of procrastination swept aside. The reminder that the gun existed had him scared enough to cooperate, he’d done all he reasonably could to waste time. Cooperation wasn’t enough for Martin now; the bookie had to be taught that you don’t piss off the guy with the gun.

  With his free hand, Martin grabbed a fist full of Gregor’s dark grey hair and shoved him towards the desk. He wanted to run his face into it, but he didn’t have the strength to force him down in one movement. He settled for shoving him against it and reaching down for the note that Gregor had oh-so-deliberately dropped. Martin picked it up and slapped it onto the desk in front of Gregor, made him look at it.

  ‘Yes, the safe. Yeah, I will, okay, I will.’

  This was overdue, the victim trying to strike up a conversation, trying to coax Martin into saying something. Anything at all would be a start, because Gregor understood that he would need to give details to his employers. Get him to say something and then try and get him to say something incriminating, some hint of identity. Possible with most robbers because most weren’t all that bright, but not going to happen tonight.

  Gregor moved around the side of the desk and knelt down beside the heavy safe that was bolted to the floor. He worked slowly, looking up at Martin.