59 Minutes

by Gordon Brown

  I was sitting on the steps of the hostel when the manager wandered out.

  ‘Need to get you moving.’

  I didn’t realise he was addressing me and I continued to stare at the pavement.

  ‘They are closing this place down for a refurb in two weeks. It will be shut for three months. I’m struggling to place you all. Have you anyone that you can move in with?’

  I looked up, realising that I was the intended recipient of the words. I shook my head.

  ‘You’ll have to find somewhere. Even when we reopen you won’t get back in. We are changing this place to emergency accommodation only. If you want to stay you are going to need to re-apply each night. So if I were you I would start thinking about a place to live and maybe a job?’

  The last word came out with a laugh attached to it. I smiled back but I really wanted to cave his head in.

  So I am out on the street — literally. I have no cash, no roof and sod all prospects. It was just then that I thought ‘fuck it — I may as well go after Dupree’ — what the hell else is left?’

  I blagged some bus fare off the geek and headed for Martin’s.

  To my surprise he was in. I had expected to camp out in his garden, waiting for him to come home, but he had cut work early as he was going to a concert that night. He was off to see Babyshambles at the Barrowlands.

  ‘Bit old for Pete Docherty aren’t you?’

  ‘When did you get your pension?’

  ‘Piss off.’

  I asked if I could use his house for the evening. One way or another I needed to figure out my next move. Martin had access to the internet — which was fine except I had no idea how to use the thing. Inside prison I had shunned it and since I got out I had avoided it. I asked Martin for a crash course. He introduced me to the wonders of Google and told me he would be back by twelve o’clock.

  ‘And leave the fucking whisky alone.’

  I told him I would and he knew I wouldn’t.

  I made a cup of tea and spread the photos and sheets on the table.

  The four photos I placed on the left, the two sheets of printed paper in the centre and the tea on the right. I took a scribble pad from Martin’s cupboard and bunch of pens.

  I went back to the photos first. Martin had a magnifying glass in the cupboard and with a nod to Sherlock Holmes I picked up each photo and scanned them one by one.

  The three at the cafe were duds. There was barely enough detail to make out the faces never mind a clue to where they were. The one outside the bank gave up little but the internet provided me with a hit.

  The only bank I could find that matched the plaque was Colonya Caixa de Pollenca. Their web site was in Spanish or Catalan but not English. I was sure that with the wonders of the internet that this could be translated, but I was still crawling in my Pampers when it came to using the web.

  The site indicated they had a number of branches in Mallorca but as to which one Dupree was standing outside was no clearer.

  I picked up the magnifying glass and poured over the photo again. Then my head went pop.

  ‘Inca, fucking Inca.’

  I went back to the web site and looked at the bank’s details and sure enough there was a branch in Inca. Colonya Caixa de Pollenca, Av Alcudia 9, Inca, 07300. I punched the air.

  So they were in Inca — Ryder’s home town — it made sense. I put the photos to one side and picked up the two sheets of paper.

  ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT5RIPNLC4A903753Q0201 C2O5M3PIT9EF1G3H211L4LAXLFATCOOONTTARCAPS9E4NDYYARR1Y4DFETR

  Gibberish. If they were a code then there had to be a key.

  I took the shorter string of characters and played around with the letters and the numbers for an hour. Taking a breather I raided Martin’s drinks cabinet before I went back to it again, but got nowhere.

  I remembered the creativity course I had been on and it advised leaving the problem alone, doing something else and then going back to it with a fresh head. I fired up the TV and used a film on TCM to drain my brain.

  I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up the film was near the end. It was a poor man’s Jimmy Cagney and I wasn’t interested but just as I went to kill the telly, the central character pulled open a door and leapt in, gun at the ready.

  The baddie (or it could have been the goodie) was waiting.

  ‘Can’t pull the same stunt twice Mikey.’

  With that he shot the goodie (or baddie) in the chest. Shit dialogue — I turned it off but the same stunt twice line ran through my head and then an Edison sized light bulb went on. I pulled out the sheet of paper with the disc code on it and grabbed the sheet with

  ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT5RIPNLC4A903753Q0201 on it.

  1,3,5,7 and so on — what if the disc’s owner had used this for the key as well as the code for the disc. I scribbled down only the characters that related to the odd numbers.

  It read

  Avalcudia5inca07300 — or Av Alcudia 5, Inca, 07300

  I cracked a bottle of seriously expensive wine ten seconds later. The next part was easy. I applied the same logic to the other sheet and came up with compte13214alacontrasenyaryder.

  It still looked like rubbish.

  I slugged at the wine and sat back. Maybe the second sheet worked to a different code. I picked up the pen and tried another variant highlighting every even number — still gibberish. I tried every third number, every fourth. I tried starting with the second letter and choosing every third and fourth. I tried every fifth and then I tried the first number, the second number the fourth the eighth and so on.

  Sheet after scribbled sheet ended up in a pile on the table. I threw none away. I wanted to ball each failure up and sling it in the bin but how was I to know that there weren’t two steps to this and that the secret lay in taking an earlier attempt and applying another code.

  I finished the bottle of wine and rested my head in my hands.

  ‘My good wine, you bastard.’

  I woke up to Martin shaking me. I looked at the clock. It was gone two o’clock.

  ‘Sorry but I thought I had cracked this bloody code.’

  I showed him the first sheet. He smiled or rather his lips moved up at the edges — it could have been a sneer but I was in alcohol fuzz mode.

  He picked up the second sheet and I handed him my first attempt at decoding it. He looked at for a few seconds and then bent down. He placed the decoded sheet on the table, and spread it out trying to even out the creases and folds. He picked up a pen and circled the last five letters on it.

  Ryder

  We were left with. compte13214alacontrasenya

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  He took the sheet over to the computer and typed the whole line into Google. I followed him over and watched as the screen came up with:

  Your search — compte13214alacontrasenya — did not match any documents.

  He laid the sheet next to the computer and doodled for a second before putting a ring around the letters ‘compte’, another ring round ‘13214’ and a final ring around ‘alacontrasenya’

  He pumped ‘compte’ into Google. It produced a few hits — mostly to do with French. Martin brought up a French/English on line dictionary. He inputted the word and the translator spat out ‘count’ or ‘amount’.

  ‘French?’ I said.

  He ignored me. He entered the word Catalan and English in the Google box and got a site that translated ‘compte’ as ‘account’. He put in ‘alacontrasenya’ into the site. It came up blank. He started to chew the pen and then entered ‘a la contrasenya’. It blanked. He entered just ‘contrasenya’ and the site threw up ‘password’.

  He grabbed a new sheet and wrote:

  Account — 13214 (a) (ala)

  Password — ryder.

  ‘Ta da. I think this is the account number and the password for the bank you found. I can’t be sure of the account number because the ‘a’ and the ‘la’ may be part of the word ‘contrasenya’ or they may not
.’

  ‘How the hell did you get to Catalan?’

  ‘ Mallorca is connected in some way to Catalan — or something — I’m no expert. The first word was in French but Catalan and French have links and given the bank was in Mallorca I gave it a go. Amazing what you can do on the internet.’

  ‘Clever,’ I said, ‘But the address for the Colonya Caixa de Pollenca in Inca is at number 9, not number 5 Alcudia Ave?

  So there we finished and I wasn’t sure how much closer to revenge on Dupree I was. We had a photo of four men — two of whom we knew. A connection to an old Glasgow criminal. An account number and password for a bank in Spain (maybe). And what?

  It was too late for the hostel so I blagged the couch in Martin’s room and fell asleep in seconds.

  Chapter 39

  Friday February 15 th 2008

  It’s strange how some things work out. I spent yesterday running over the evening at Martin’s. The highs and lows of working through the puzzle. The resolution that turns out not to be a resolution but yet another puzzle.

  I jumped a bus into the city centre and went for a walk, mindful that whoever was after me might know where I now lived and could be following. I kept to the busy parts of town and looked over my shoulder so often I must have looked like some day release patient from the local nut-shop pretending to be a spy on a secret mission.

  In between the looks over my shoulder I ran through my head what I knew and decided it was nowhere near enough to make a decision on what to do next.

  If Dupree’s demise lay buried in the photos or hidden in the bank account, then better people than myself and Martin were needed. Such people exist and I may have been locked up for fourteen years but my network of contacts has not faded to the point where it is useless. Some of them are dead and some have moved on but there are enough around that could help if I wanted to raise my head above the parapet and call on them.

  But therein lies the problem. I haven’t contacted anyone because I want to keep my profile low — very low.

  As I walked by the HMV record shop on Argyle St I caught the sound of The Beloved as they threw out the invitation to Lose Yourself In Me. Strange to hear a nineties band blaring out — maybe it was greatest hits season — although post Christmas seemed an odd time if it was.

  I like The Beloved — chilled music before the term chilled was hijacked by the dance brigade as post drug come down music. Jon Marsh’s voice always sounded the way I thought people would who only ever breathed out and I mouthed the words — probably adding to the lunatic cover I was building — mouthing, shoulder looks and the dress sense of Wurzel Gummidge — I was your friendly neighborhood fruit bat.

  I was a yard past the front door to the store when it hit me. Lose Yourself In Me. It was exactly what I was doing to myself. I’d swapped one prison for another. One with physical bars for one with mental bars. I was free to wander the streets but I had no money, little human contact and soon no roof over my head.

  I could see myself down on the river front, lying under the bridge with the other down and outs. I could taste the meths, smell the shit, feel the concrete under my bum. Ice cold in winter — stinking hot in the summer. I could see the spot in Buchanan St where I would squat down and hold out cupped hands waiting for someone to drop ten pence or spit on me.

  I stopped walking and listened to the music. What was I doing? I‘d once had a hell of a life and the balls to hold onto it. I was a millionaire. Ok a bent millionaire but I had the cash, the status and, best of all, a future and now I was shuffling around Glasgow in rags. Next I’d start thinking about how long before death makes this all go away.

  I focused my thoughts on Dupree and what the bastard had done to me. What was the down side of going after him? What in the hell was he going to do to me that I wasn’t already doing to myself? Kill me. So what! Do nothing and I’d be dead in a year.

  I turned and walked into the store and the security guard approached me.

  ‘Can I help sir?’

  I felt my shoulders drop as I started to turn to leave and then I stopped. I turned back and looked him in the eye. I had a couple of inches in height on him but he had a couple of tons of muscle that I would never see.

  I did a Michael J Fox and flipped back in time. I dug out a part of me that had been locked away for a long time. I pulled up, from the depths, the way I used to think when someone fronted me up and dropped all the feeling from my eyes. I tipped my head to one side and balled up a fist. I rocked forward on the soles of my feet and closed the distance between me and the security guard. My breath was probably killing him. I lifted my balled up hand and stretched out a finger — touching him lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Going to have a look for some CD’s. Is that a fucking problem?’

  I saw the fear sprint over his face. I knew the look of old. I lifted my finger higher and touched him on the nose.

  ‘Is it?’

  I dropped my hand and walked into the shop. I knew he wouldn’t shout. It felt good. A long way from being back on track but it felt good.

  Maybe I’m not dead.

  At least not dead yet.

  Chapter 40

  Saturday February 23 rd 2008

  I have moved out of the hostel and in with Martin. I gave him no choice but to be fair he didn’t give me any grief. I’m sitting here in a fresh pair of jeans, a Teetonic t-shirt, a pair of Timberland boots and a clean set of teeth. My hair is crew cut and the beard is gone. I have three hundred pounds sterling on my hip and access to a car. All courtesy of Martin’s generous nature and the fact that I said I’ll pay him back in less than a month.

  I’ve yet to pull myself back into my old world but I know I will. I just need to do it with speed and purpose that suit the moment.

  I haven’t seen the goon patrol for a while but I can’t believe that they would give in that easy. They’ll be back but I don’t give a monkey’s at the moment. I have a plan of action. Not the best plan on the planet but any plan is better than no plan. It is built around three questions:

  1) Who are all the people in the photos?

  2) What is behind the bank account details?

  3) Can I sink Dupree?

  It’s that simple. In true tit over arse fashion I’m starting with question 2 and I’m paying a visit to Charlie Wiggs on Monday.

  Charlie was my last proper accountant. The man who manfully arranged my annual finances to make the Inland Revenue smile. Charlie was never on the inside track of what I did but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that my only source of income came from my ‘consultancy’ work — but hey in the eighties consultancy was the buzzword and it covered a multitude of sins.

  I took me a while to track him down. He had moved on and now worked for a crowd called Cheedle, Baker and Nudge located in a forty storey monstrosity called Tyler Tower on West George St. Charlie lives on the twentieth floor and when I finally appeared at the reception I was met by a man with a walking stick.

  ‘Charlie Wiggs. As I live and breathe,’ I said.

  ‘Shite.’

  It’s nice to know you’re loved. Charlie had been busy. It transpires that he had become a bit of a celeb after nearly dying in George Square during a sting to catch an old friend of mine. When I say friend I really mean arsehole.

  I got the full SP on the events surrounding his rise to sainthood and was impressed to find that Charlie had, along with a couple of friends, brought down a whole gang of criminals. In the process both his legs had been stabbed and the walking stick was the last crutch on the way back to full fitness.

  It sounded like a hell of a story but I wasn’t in the mood for a Jackanory moment and had told him what I wanted. He questioned me and I had to tell him more than I wanted to, but I needed the info. He told me to leave the bank details and come back Monday. I told him what would happen if word got out about our meeting and he took it on board.

  Roll on Monday.

  Chapter 41

  Tuesday February 26 th 2008


  I didn’t get back until late last night so, coffee in hand and staring at Martin’s tiny back garden, I’m dictating in a pair of boxers and nothing else. Martin is away to work and like the dutiful partner I have a list of chores that are expected of me before he returns. The list is sitting next to me, staring up, willing me to do nothing.

  Charlie turned out to be a small gold mine of information. I had expected a brief chat on the vagaries of the Spanish banking system and some insight into how I might access the account. Instead Charlie gave me War and Peace.

  ‘Ok,’ he started. ‘Let’s go with the simple stuff first.’

  We were sitting in a Costa coffee near Charlie’s office. A soup bowl of double shot latte sat in front of him and I nursed a water — Martin’s supply of good drink had all been exhausted by me the night before.

  ‘The bank you gave me the details on is a well established, well respected member of the financial community. The Colonya Caixa de Pollenca has been around in one form or another since 1880. It was a single office for sixty years and only opened its first branch outside Mallorca in 2000. Even now the majority of the branches are in Mallorca but they now service all the Balearic Islands and also have presence in Barcelona.’

  I’d forgotten what a briefing from Charlie was like. Martin used to call him University Charlie.

  ‘They seem to be a modern and dynamic bank. Small but efficient and well established in the area. I phoned a friend of mine who has a flat in Puerta De Pollenca and he uses them for his Spanish account.’

  I hadn’t wanted Charlie to start phoning his mates but then again I hadn’t told him not to.

  ‘He rates them. I asked about the account system and it’s fairly well a standard affair. They offer a range of accounts and they are all well protected. As such the information you have is next to useless.’