59 Minutes

by Gordon Brown

  I walked into the house and was swallowed by an idyllic cottage — layout replete with large open hearth fire, overstuffed armchair and bright chintzy curtains over lattice windows. The floor was stone with a large rug dead centre and a couple of two seat sofas sat at right angles to each other. The ceiling was low and stripped with beams that made ducking a necessity for anyone over two feet tall. The walls were rough hewn sandstone and, opposite the fire, was a monumental sideboard and display cabinet. Just at that moment a grandfather clock chimed.

  All of this would have been perfectly normal if it wasn’t for the fact that I was standing in one of a small row of ex-council nineteen sixties, breezeblock homes. It was hard to fathom the dichotomy of exterior and interior but Martin resolved it in seconds.

  ‘I bought it like this. The previous owners were in their eighties. They always wanted a farmhouse but couldn’t afford it. So they did this. You should see the bedrooms. Drink?’

  I almost missed the offer but the sound of glass on glass as Martin whipped two tumblers from the drinks cabinet meant we had moved on from tea to something stronger. I nodded my head. Martin waved at one of the sofas and I sat down. He chinked and clinked until a four-finger measure of whisky and ice appeared over my shoulder.

  ‘ Highland Park. Or have you changed.’

  I hadn’t had a glass of Highland Park malt whisky since the day before I was arrested. I gave a non-committal grunt and took a slug. Nectar slid down my throat and I realised how far I had fallen.

  Martin sat down in the other sofa and sipped at a whisky that was half the size of mine. He kicked out his feet and let rip with a sigh that would have brought a tear to a glass eye.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t start off by kicking my head in,’ he said.

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘A lot of questions?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’ll have a lot of questions?’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘Fire on.’

  This was not going in any shape or form the way I had planned it. For a start Martin was supposed to be quaking in his boots at my reappearance. At the moment the only quaking going on was the rumble of the double decker buses and trucks that occasionally went past his front door. I took another swallow and realised I had drained the glass. Martin pulled in his feet, stood up and took the glass from me. Clink, chink and it was full again.

  ‘You must have been thirsty?’

  I ignored the jibe.

  I wasn’t sure where to start. Did I get into the whole trial and betrayal thing? Did I ask how he had survived the coming to power of Dupree? Would an opening gambit be to ask about the key? Did I ask him if Partick Thistle were doing well or did I ask after his other love — rugby?

  ‘How’s Clarkston RFC doing?’ I said.

  ‘They aren’t. They vanished years ago. Merged and changed names a few times and are now known as GHA. Still in the same place but a health club bought some land off them and, as part of the deal, they had a new stand and clubhouse built for them. Good deal really.’

  ‘Do you still go to see them?’

  ‘Most weekends when they are at home. Occasionally on the road but only if they are close by.’

  ‘Any of the old school still there.’

  ‘A couple. Jimmy Naismith still pulls the odd stint on coaching but he has a place in Spain and is more there than here. Donald Grier is club secretary but I am a bit persona non gratis with him. What with me and his daughter.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. Mary Grier had been an on/off girlfriend of Martin’s for the last few years before I was sent down. Although she lived in Glasgow, Martin would fly her down for long weekends and then some. This seriously pissed of her dad — a lay preacher of the fire and brimstone variety. Donald was none to happy at his ‘takeaway’ daughter. His phrase not mine — ‘You’re like a bloody Indian takeaway. He calls and you deliver.’

  Inevitably it had ended in tears when Martin, tired of the old man’s complaints, found that Donald was badmouthing him to anyone that would listen. Donald had even been known to bring Martin’s name into some of his sermons. Martin reacted by sending four of the lads to have a quiet word. Donald got the message but some people just don’t scare well and he continued to slag off Martin. Only the intervention of his daughter saved him a more serious kicking.

  ‘Do you still see Mary?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Meaning.’

  ‘I see her when I pick up Tara.’

  ‘Who’s Tara?’

  ‘Mary’s stepdaughter.’

  ‘Why would you be bothered about Mary’s stepdaughter?’

  ‘We’re an item.’

  ‘You and Mary’s stepdaughter. No shit?’

  I didn’t ask her age. I could guess. Martin was just too weird for cheese.

  The conversation drifted and was taking on a strange glow. Not just as a result of the whisky but, although we’d had our ups and downs, because we had always been able to gab just fine. The years were slipping away and my desire to lay into him was waning with the bottle.

  ‘Hungry?’

  I realised I was ravenous.

  ‘Kind of.’

  Martin reached for a cordless phone that sat next to his sofa and dialled a number from memory.

  ‘For delivery please. Martin Sketchmore. Hi Ajmal. How’s business? Good — can I have a Lamb Korma, Chicken Tikka Masala and two fried rice? Add in a garlic nan, a regular nan and a bottle of Diet Coke’

  He hung up.

  ‘Not Chinese?’ I said.

  ‘Had one last night.’

  We jawed about next to nothing for half an hour before the doorbell went and we were in Indian food land. We ate in silence and when the dishes were cleared away and my glass refilled we sat down to some serious talk.

  ‘The courtroom. Why?’ I asked.

  Martin rubbed his stomach and belched.

  ‘Dupree had me by the nuts. I grass on you or my family/friends/acquaintances/colleagues/people I met when I was three and have never seen since — don’t see the next morning. He threatened to kill mum, gran, Joan, Colleen — even little Brian. All of them and then some. What would you have done?’

  I had always suspected as much but it didn’t lessen my anger.

  ‘You could have run.’

  ‘Where? Dupree is an evil fucker. Far worse than you or me ever were. He was onto me hours after you were lifted and laid it on the line. You or my family.’

  ‘So who cut the deal with the police?’

  ‘Dupree. Don’t ask me how, but he did.’

  ‘And you believed he would keep his word?’

  ‘It was my biggest fear. I drop you in it and then I’m history. But he’s a weird one. His word is his bond. He said that not me. From what I know he seems to hold to that. If I stay away from him he’ll honour our deal. How else could I have survived? I’m hardly the invisible man. How long did it take you to find me?’

  That was true. I had found out his location from behind the bars of a prison. Dupree would have found him in seconds.

  ‘The letter?’ I said.

  ‘Do you still have it?’

  I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him. He rolled it up and threw it in the fire.

  ‘So what’s in the box?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But whatever it is it didn’t come from me ‘

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s from Spencer. Whatever is in the box is from Spencer.’

  ‘Where’s Spencer?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Dupree?’

  ‘No, a car crash on the road to Oban about two years after you went down. Up until that point Spencer worked for Dupree.’

  ‘I thought he vanished with you.’

  ‘That’s what Dupree wanted everyone to think but Dupree needed someone who knew the way the crockery was laid out until he could get his feet under the table. So Spencer was shipped back north and moved in with his mum in Inveraray. Dup
ree used him as a sounding board and as long as he kept himself to himself Dupree left him alone.’

  I had known Spencer’s mum had roots in Scotland but not where she lived. Inveraray was a tourist stop on the way to the Mull of Kintyre. Nice enough for the day but not somewhere I would choose for home and certainly not somewhere for Spencer. He would have gone out of his mind with boredom. I could see him now — blind drunk at the wheel of some hot rod, hammering up the road between Inveraray and Oban. On a good day you need to take care on the road as it either twists and turns through the glens or hugs the shore. Forty feet artics are frequent and, at points, the road hardly accommodates a mini. Car crashes were all too common.

  ‘So what has Spencer got to do with the box?’

  ‘I was staying with one of Spencer’s friends. She lived in Fulham. Spencer turns up at the door one day. He looks nervous and knows he is well outside the safe zone that Dupree has given him. He comes in but he doesn’t sit down. He shouldn’t be in London and he knows it. His eyes are all over the place. Like he is expecting someone to jump him any minute. He tells me that Stevie at the Lame Duck has something for me. I look at him as if he just landed from Mars. I ask him what he is on about. He says he knows some things about Dupree and has given Stevie instructions to hand it over to you or me. Then he leaves. Next thing I know he is on the inside page of the Daily Record as one of four that died in a high speed crash on the road to Oban.’

  ‘So you went to Stevie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t know Dupree. You really don’t. He has figured out ways to hurt people that wouldn’t seem credible in a Stephen King novel. I was safe and I wanted to stay that way but I figured you might like a pop at him. So I scribbled up the letter and sent it to you.’

  ‘And you never once thought to see Stevie in all those years?’

  ‘Oh it passed my mind now and again and I always reckoned that if I got a sniff Dupree was on the turn I could track down Stevie double quick.’

  Sometimes in life you smell things that just makes your nose curl up.

  ‘Are you telling me that you never went to find out what Stevie had been given?’

  ‘Never. I wrote you the letter years ago and sent Rachel to deliver it when I thought you were due out. Then I tried to blank it from my mind.’

  I rolled back in the chair and sipped at the malt. Martin was looking at me, waiting for a response but I didn’t have one. Not then anyway. I sipped some more and held up the glass for more. Tonight was going no further. I either got very drunk or I went home.

  I got very drunk.

  Chapter 34

  Wednesday January 30 th 2008

  I haven’t felt like using the digital recorder for a few days. I know I promised myself to detail everything I did but I can’t decide if the Drumchapel job is a worthwhile exercise.

  I spent the night at Martin’s and woke up the next morning less sure of my actions than I had been since I left prison. The last week has been a haze. My cell mates go on the batter nightly and I have avoided it like the plague. It would be too easy to slide into the alcohol wagon and tell everyone else to take a flying fuck.

  On the night after my visit with Martin I was in a different place. I sat next to the Necropolis and stared down at Glasgow. Did I need this shit anymore? Would life be easier if I just dropped to first gear and wandered through the rest of my natural existence with little more horizon than the next bottle of booze? How hard could it be? How bad could it be?

  I sat with my back against the grave of Hugh Tennent and looked at his brewery sprawled out at my feet and made a call. An hour later I was trying straight meths for the first time in my life. One taste and I threw up. I told the assembled body to sit tight and took off in the direction of Alexandra Parade. On the way I picked up a chunk of metal from a building site and entered the corner store with a face that said don’t fuck with me.

  I left with six bottles of malt — the store’s entire inventory of good whisky. I made it clear to the shopkeeper that calling the police was not an option. I put on the look of a man that had been here a million times before and the owner let me go quietly. When I returned to my drinking mates they were gobsmacked but they asked few questions as they tucked into the booty.

  I fell asleep next to Hugh’s grave. I think he might have understood.

  For the next five nights I played the Tesco delivery van to my drinking companions’ needs. I did in five stores and left each one in no doubt to the future should they call foul. Last night I drew a line in the sand and stepped back.

  It wasn’t hard to see why. My mates — now up to fifteen in number — were waiting on me behind the car impound on High St. Six of them were from the hostel but the others had joined our merry throng as my supply of drink had grown in notoriety. In the circles I was now mixing in, notoriety spreads fast.

  I had eight bottles of varying sprits on me but after an hour it wasn’t enough. My friends looked to me for more and, even in my inebriated state, I knew this was no way to a good place.

  I pissed off and went up to the Necropolis to throw up. As I lay looking at the red tinged clouds above the city I knew I was on a bad slope and either I changed or I’d end up at the back end of a bottle for the rest of my life. The next day I went back to Martin’s. This time I wanted his help and he had no choice over whether he gave it to me or not.

  He opened the door and looked at me the way my mum used to look at me when I had been in a fight. The Highland Park was still on tap and I should have said no but I didn’t. I needed something to kill the hangover.

  We chatted and chewed the cud well into the night and the second bottle of malt was cracked open before I told Martin what I wanted. He looked at me and stood up. I was waiting for an exit stage left or a ‘yes we are in this together’. Instead I got a blank and he headed for the toilet. I felt like a patient in a doctor’s surgery waiting for results of a test. Martin came back in and looked at me.

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  Less than six months earlier I would have told him that keeping his life was a fair bargaining chip but the world moves on and I was in need of his help. What was in it for him? Why should he help me? After all if Dupree was such a bastard then a peaceful life in a mock farmhouse was no bad thing.

  I was hardly in a position to offer a deal. What could I say? I’ll breathe on you if you don’t help? To be fair that was no idle threat given the state of my dental hygiene at the moment. I could stun at ten feet. Then I dug deep and went for the nuts.

  ‘We shake and go home?’

  It was a low blow. Not that low blows meant much now. It was a phrase I had used more than once in London.

  When I had asked him to come down at first it was more than a request and he knew it. He had a good life in Glasgow and I was asking him to chuck it on the fire and head for my voice. To his credit he had done so, but not without a hundred regrets. I had shat on him from a high place and even though he had done well in London he was never happy.

  Every time we had to put on the fight mitts I would tell him that it would soon be over and we could shake and go home. We never did. And now I was calling in a favour that didn’t exist and he knew it. I stared at the whisky and was lost for words. My fall from grace was complete.

  Martin walked behind me and reached down, grabbing my shoulders.

  He could have taken me by the throat and who would have cared. Me? Not then. Not right at that moment. I waited on his fingers around my throat but of course they never came.

  ‘You can’t offer me home. I’m home but if I help you, we call it all quits.’

  I looked up at him. The thinnest of smiles on my face.

  ‘Deal.’

  We turned to the options for Drumchapel in the same way we had planned a thousand jobs. As usual the first ideas were of the bog standard type — they always are.

  I went on a creativity training course once — it was the old man’s idea down in
London. He had been on it and thought his direct reports should go. I thought he was kidding but it was a three-line whip and, as it turned out, a real eye opener.

  I’m a cynical bastard about such things but it was better than I feared and a few things stuck in my head. One of them was what they call the ‘First Burst’ — the first ideas you come up with. The same old same old.

  The course had told me that this was the norm and to get fresh thinking you needed to push by these ideas and, as none of the stuff we came up with answered the brief, we ploughed on. Then Martin threw in a wild idea and we were home free with added sugar. It always works that way.

  We are going for it tomorrow.

  Chapter 35

  Friday February 1st 2008

  So now I know what Spencer left for me. Getting it was a stroke of genius on Martin’s part and so blindingly obvious that I am currently thinking about submitting myself for the thick as a plank award.

  Martin phoned the Credit Union and asked what the procedure was for retrieving the contents of a box for someone who was deceased. The requirements were straight forward enough — a copy of the death certificate and proof that you were now the legal heir to the deceased’s property.

  The former was easy. A trip to the Martha St births, deaths and marriages office and we were away. Spencer Cline, deceased 14 ^th March 1996, cause of death — automobile accident.

  The next step was trickier. Martin phoned directory enquiries and asked for a Cline living in Inveraray. There was one match and he phoned the number. Mrs Cline answered the phone and things got awkward.

  Martin had only met her once before at Glasgow Central Station when she had turned up with Spencer in tow after he had enjoyed a long weekend away from the troubles of London.

  Martin explained who he was and apologised for not attending Spencer’s funeral. He told her he had been out of the country for the last fifteen years and had just come back to find a letter from Spencer that had been held by a mutual friend. The letter said that Spencer had tried to return some old photographs that Martin had loaned him but, by then, he had gone abroad. For whatever reason Spencer had placed them in a safety deposit box under his own name and he needed her permission to open the box.