by BRM Stewart
Then reality struck. Hard.
I was spending most of my time in St Vincent Street, with Davey at Argyle Street. We had hired another young guy, whose name was Ben but whom we called Frank II. They got on with things with minimal supervision in their OCD way, and Davey was just so happy with Jane and the baby, and mucking about with hardware all day. He didn’t go to the pub any more of an evening, not even on Fridays. Drinking with the Franks was hard work, so I stopped going too on those weekends when I stayed in Glasgow, when Elizabeth was out and about with publishers, or down in London.
Then we had the incident in Argyle Street. Davey phoned me, his voice trembling. ‘Two guys came in – young guys – smashed one of the computers, said they‘d be back tomorrow.’
Sandy and I went straight up there in a taxi, and into the shop. I was shocked. There wasn’t too much of a mess – one computer smashed, and some stuff pulled off shelves – but it represented an invasion of our orderly lives. Davey was still shaking, the two Franks stood close together as far into the workshop as they could go, their faces frozen in surprise and fear. Our receptionist Gertrude was sitting down, tears on her face.
Sandy didn’t look shocked, or particularly surprised. ‘What did they say they wanted?’ he asked. When no one answered, he repeated: ‘What did they say?’ His voice was calm.
Davey’s voice trembled. ‘They said they’d be back tomorrow morning. They want money, otherwise they’ll beat the shit out of us. One grand. Every month.’
Sandy smiled and gave a snort. ‘Not a problem,’ he said.
‘Are we going to pay up?’
Sandy looked at Davey. ‘No, Davey, we are not going to pay up. These guys are amateurs, so we’ll just teach them a lesson, and they’ll go away.’ He thought for a couple of minutes.
‘I want you all in here tomorrow.’ He turned to Gertrude to indicate that he included her, and she nodded, then tried to dry her tears again. ‘Working as normal. I’ll be here too, with another body, and Charlie. We’ll see what they have to say. Were they armed?’
‘Baseball bats,’ Gertrude said.
‘Huge baseball bats,’ the Franks said, as one.
‘Not a problem,’ Sandy repeated.
*
The morning dragged. It was wet outside, so every customer came through the door as fast as they could, and that made us jump. Sandy sat on a chair just inside the workshop, reading the paper and then a paperback thriller. The other man was introduced as Ted: he was mid-twenties, small thin and muscly, with very short hair and a stubbled face, and cold, dead blue eyes. He sat motionless, his hands in the pocket of his ancient brown leather bomber jacket, chewing gum. Charlie hadn’t shown up.
Finally – and I was almost grateful for the release of tension – the two young guys came through the door. They were in their late teens, scrawny kids who moved jerkily, nervily, eyes darting.
They came in, flipped the sign, and snibbed the door. Then they pulled out their baseball bats from under long black coats. One went to the counter: ‘You got our money, gorgeous?’ The other guy stood in the middle of the office, looking through to me, Davey and the Franks, a slight frown on his face.
Gertrude turned towards the workshop, and Sandy got slowly to his feet and into their view. ‘I’ve got what you need boys.’ Ted stood up too, just out of their sight.
The first guy came towards Sandy: ‘OK, you old fucker, hand it over.’
‘What’s the deal here, boys?’ Sandy replied. ‘If we pay you, do you go away?’
‘Aye – ‘ he attempted a laugh. He held the baseball bat like he was ready to swing it, obviously sensing something wasn’t quite going the way he’d planned: Sandy’s confidence had rattled him. ‘Till next time.’
Sandy shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s got a good enough deal, boys. So why don’t you pair of cunts just fuck off and never come back here?’
The second kid, who looked the more wired of the two, suddenly leapt forward and swung his bat: ‘Fuck you, you old - ’
Sandy stepped inside the wild swing and his arm jerked, and the kid dropped to the floor, letting go of the bat and clutching his throat. Ted was suddenly at the other kid, grabbing the bat and kicking the kid’s legs from under him. Then he stood over the kid and started hitting him with the bat, again and again. The kid tried to protect himself, but there was a crunch of bone and screams.
‘That’s enough,’ Sandy said.
The second kid was on the ground, absolutely amazed by what had happened, trying to take it in, still gasping for breath. The first kid was almost unconscious, rolling from side to side, trying to clutch what was obviously a badly broken arm.
Sandy crouched by the second kid: ‘You boys working for anybody?’
There was a shake of the head.
‘So you dreamed this up on your own?’
Nods.
‘OK.’ Sandy reached inside his coat pocket and produced an odd-looking handgun, which he pointed at the kid’s head. I was sitting terrified and frozen, along with Davey and the Franks. ‘Now,’ Sandy went on, ‘that’s a lovely couple of baseball bats you’ve got there, but I’ve got this.’
The kid was trying to back away as he lay on his back, but Sandy held his leg. Then he laughed and stood up. ‘Up you get.’
The second kid got to his feet, his eyes darting from the gun to Sandy’s eyes, up and down, hands still at his throat, trying to swallow, trying to breathe properly.
‘You’ll need to help your pal here down to the Western. They’ll take good care of him. So, off you go. And, we’ll never see you again, will we?’
They hobbled out, the second kid almost dragging his mate who was moaning and giving the odd scream.
Sandy turned with a smile to us all. ‘Thanks, Ted. OK, that wraps it up – we won’t see them again.’
‘How can we be sure? I asked.
‘They’re just wee guys that thought they’d chance their arm. They’re not going to risk getting killed for a grand a month. No, I’ve dealt with this situation often enough, I know the type.’
I didn’t doubt it, but I hoped that he hadn’t got it wrong this time.
The shop door opened, and we all leapt back, except for Ted and Sandy, who looked like they were bracing themselves for a renewed assault.
Charlie looked round, and then put a concerned expression on his face. ‘Aw fuck, have I missed all the fun? Jeez, sorry guys. Did you manage to handle it all, Sandy?’
Sandy didn’t say anything as he eased past Charlie and outside with Ted. We watched them cross through the traffic towards the pub, looking in the direction of the Western.
We all sighed with relief of the tension. Charlie was grinning. ‘So what happened, guys? Did Sandy sort them out?’
I went over to Gertrude: she was still shaking. ‘I can’t work here any more,’ she said to me, in a husky, soft voice: ‘I really can’t.’
‘See how you get on today,’ I said. ‘Nothing else will happen today.’
Charlie was pacing around like he’d won the battle of the OK Corral single-handedly. He picked up a discarded baseball bat and weighed it appreciatively.
‘Where were you?’ I asked, as my fear turned to the need to show some aggression towards something, somebody.
‘Picking up my new car,’ he said, swinging the bat and making Star Wars whooshing noises. ‘Fuckin’ Tigra 1.6, man. What a beast.’
I shook my head.
‘Anything else happening?’ Charlie asked.
‘There’s a company in Inverness,’ Davey said, his voice still trembling. ‘They’re wondering if we could go up there and set up their system. Should only take a day. They’ve got the hardware, just need it wired up and installed.’
I frowned. I really didn’t fancy going all that way. ‘Could you do the software side?’ I asked Davey.
‘Yeah, no problem. If there is, I’ll phone you. I’ll get the train up, maybe stay overnight.’ He didn’t look particularly happy about that, though.<
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‘Tell you what,’ Charlie offered, ‘let’s take the Tigra, see what it can do. I’ll even give you a shot of driving, Davey. Up and down in the one day.’
‘I haven’t passed my test yet.’
‘Bring your L-plates.’
‘OK.’ Davey was smiling, excited.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’m off home. I’ll be down at St Vincent Street tomorrow.’ I turned to the Franks: ‘You guys OK to run the show here?’
They nodded, eyes still wide.
‘Gertrude?’
She looked at me, arms hugging her chest.
‘Can you do tomorrow for us? We can probably start a temp in a day or two, but you’ll need to show her the ropes.’ There was no way the Franks could explain how the shop worked. ‘Please?’
She gave a tight nod, blinking away tears.
*
I was alone in St Vincent Street the next morning when the receptionist put through a call from what turned out to be an irate customer: he ran a small business just off Byres Road, selling a range of niche products like fancy – and very expensive – oils, vinegars and spices, mostly online. We had set up his website with everything he needed for secure online selling, and I’d been monitoring it from time to time; everything seemed to be working fine. I couldn’t understand what he was on about on the phone, so I went over there.
He had closed the small shop to customers, and sent his two staff away for the day. Raging, he told me about the problem, without offering me a coffee. Bill was in his fifties, receding, greying hair, short and round.
‘Three of my customers have had their credit card details stolen and used. And others have been double-charged for some of my products.’
‘That happens to a lot of people these days.’
‘They think it has something to do with using my website – they all ordered online, though some came in to collect. They all came in to complain.’
I pursed my lips and shook my head. ‘Very unlikely – your system has the latest security and encryption. What is more likely is that they’ve used some dodgy website somewhere else, had their credit cards stolen from there.’ But it was a coincidence right enough.
‘It happened just after they started shopping with me.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. Credit card numbers get stolen and then stashed, or sold on – they may lie for months without being used. The timing isn’t significant. And they’ll get their money back.’
He was calming down. ‘Could you check my system, Martin? Just in case. Reassure me.’
‘No problem.’ I took off my jacket and sat down, using my B&D master password to get administrator rights and delve through his system. I downloaded a small checking program from our own website and ran it, looking at the results as they scrolled up in a text window. And my frown deepened.
I was handed a coffee. ‘Anything odd?’
I took a drink. ‘Have your staff been installing anything on this machine?’
He shook his head. ‘Sometimes they’ll surf the Internet in their lunchtime, but that’s all.’
‘I think they’ve managed to infect your machine by doing that – you have a virus, or something.’ But the virus checker wasn’t showing anything untoward. ‘It might be…’ My voice tailed off. ‘Look, could you leave me to this for a couple of hours? I need to have a close look.’ It looked like there was an unknown process running, but our anti-virus software hadn’t picked it up, which was odd.
Two hours later I was sure about what was happening. While credit card details were being entered by customers through his secure, encrypted website, something else was going on. Another program was running which captured raw credit card details, and sent them to a server somewhere. It also looked like random checkouts were double-charged. The proper, secure shopping website, which I had designed, was overlaid by something else. That should not have been allowed by the software.
This all indicated that there was something seriously wrong with our system, and if Bill had a problem then undoubtedly others did too.
‘Look, I think we do a re-install. I can save your customer list, but I think it’s best if we delete any credit card information that they’ve stored. I’ll add something to the home screen to tell customers that you’ve got additional security.’
‘Thanks, Martin.’
‘Someone will come round this afternoon, then I’ll come and check it. I suggest you stop your staff surfing the Internet from this machine, and educate them about dodgy websites.’
Bill shook my hand gratefully.
I phoned Argyle Street and told Frank what I wanted him and Frank II to do. Then I went down to St Vincent Street.
I went into Colin’s office, to talk to him about what had been going on, and to investigate whether the breaches in security were coming from us in some way. But he stopped me before I could begin.
‘They’ve been in a crash.’
‘Who?’
‘Charlie and Davey.’
I sat down. ‘How are they?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
We stared at each other.
*
I sat down opposite Ken Talbot and took another drink of my beer. I realised I hadn’t actually seen him for years, but he had always been there, in the background. His appearance was a shock: his face was gaunt and grey, his hair thin, his body stooped. His eyes were far away, no shine to them. He wore a suit and black tie, but he looked old and crumpled, the shell of the man I’d met half a lifetime before, the power and threat that he had always carried now dimmed.
‘Hellish business, son,’ he said, lifting his glass of whisky to his lips, his fingers trembling slightly.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.
‘It was his own fault, the stupid wee cunt.’
‘Davey was driving.’
‘Aye, but it was Charlie’s car. He knew Davey was just a learner – no way he should have let him drive the Tigra.’
‘The cops say the guy coming the other way was at fault. The road had changed to single carriageway, but the other guy didn’t seem to notice.’
‘Must be a stupid cunt as well then.’ The shaking fingers raised the glass again.
I looked round the dark pub that had been hired for Charlie’s wake. All the people from both our offices were there, out of respect rather than any mark of friendship or particular liking for Charlie, but I didn’t recognise any of the others: men speaking in rough Glasgow accents, women – with fake tans and excessive make up – smoking and sipping from small glasses.
They’d crashed that day on the way to Inverness. Davey had been driving. He was still in intensive care, but Charlie had died instantly – he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt. I could imagine him urging Davey on, and maybe Davey responding just a wee bit to keep him happy, probably not realising how fast they were going. The police had reckoned the Tigra was doing over seventy on the single carriageway, and the Mondeo coming the other way over eighty, just coming off the dual carriageway down the Drumochter Pass but still overtaking despite being unable to see. The Mondeo driver had been killed outright. Someone said that Davey had swerved to the right, which was instinctive in a kind of a way, ending up saving himself but killing Charlie; the car being overtaken had collided with the Tigra, but its driver was OK.
We didn’t know whether Davey would survive, what the long-term damage would be. He was on life support – ‘critical but stable’. One arm broken along with four ribs, one leg shattered, the other one with several fractures; multiple internal injuries, serious head injuries. I’d gone up to the hospital to see him, but once I got into the intensive care ward and saw him lying there at the centre of a network of wires and tubes, a stack of machines by the bed flashing numbers and traces, I could only visualise Fiona there and remember my visit the day she had died, and I backed away in tears, Jane holding out her arms for comfort from me, comfort that I couldn’t give. I phoned her later to explain, forcing out the words over her sobs.
; That night I went round to see her in their home in Partick, and she hugged me, inconsolable. The baby was at her mother’s, over in Clydebank.
Finally she pulled it together and we had a drink.
‘So, you’re in a relationship, Martin. How is it going? Thinking of getting married again?’ Her words came in a rush, and she flapped her hands as she spoke.
Ah, I thought – good question. ‘It took me years to get over Fiona,’ I said. ‘I had one disastrous relationship – just for sex: it wasn’t fair on her.’
‘Was that Sam, your receptionist?’ She nodded at her own words, frowning.
‘Yes – Davey told you? Anyway, it was never going to work out. Then I met Elizabeth. We got on really well – she’s a bookseller, setting up an online business. We’re having a bit of a distance relationship, me here going down to York most weekends, her down there coming up occasionally – it’s harder for her. She’s away at a conference just now, couldn’t make the funeral.’
‘So, is it going well? Thinking of wedding bells?’
I could see she was desperate to talk about anything except Davey and his prospects, so I repeated: ‘She’s very busy with her business, I’m very busy with mine – ours, you know. There’s a lot of things we don’t have in common, but we get on really well.’
‘I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, after Fiona.’
I offered to get us another drink, and went off to explore her cupboards. I had no idea what to say to her, how to console her. I’d been there myself, but this was worse: Fiona’s death had come quickly, but god knew how long Davey would… I found a couple of beers in a cupboard and opened them.
Jane had given up talking about me, and had returned to the big black shadow over her life. ‘What do you think will happen to Davey?’ she whispered, choking slightly as she gulped her beer.
‘You mustn’t ask that.’ I reached to hold her hands. ‘You mustn’t think anything. Just take one day at a time.’
‘It must have been awful for you when Fiona was taken into hospital – Davey told me.’
‘Listen, listen. This is different. Davey’s stable, there’s hope. There was no hope with Fiona, it was quick. Davey will be fine.’