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CHAPTER ONE

Hugh O’Neill and Shaun O’Donnell, two big broad Glasgow Irishmen who claimed to be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages who was King of All Ireland when the ancestors of the English aristocracy were grubbing for nuts in the forest, bumped into each other getting off the same bus at Parkhead Cross just as the pubs were opening. The sky was blue, the syvers were littered, and there was the clinging smell of decaying refuse that goes with a warm spring evening in the East end of the city. They were parched, hot and sticky after a hard day’s work, and with a little jerk of the head and a question in their royal blue eyes they understood each other at once and went into the Tappit Hen for a brotherly crack over a quiet drink before going on home for their tea. They were only a couple of workers from the Yards who built more ships talking shop of an evening at the bar than ever they built in a year’s work, but their conversation on this occasion may throw some light on the events that began the same evening, though they themselves were of course unaware of the coincidence.

‘What’ll ye have?’ O’Donnell asked since he happened to be the first through the swing doors.

‘A glass and a pint,’ O’Neill answered, raising one hand high to salute the barman. The shade and coolness of the place were pleasant to him after the heat and dust outside. He liked pubs especially when they had just opened. At that time they were as dim and quiet as a church. A man could be at peace there with a drink in front of him, and the gantry was a kind of altar. Certainly it held on its glass shelves the expensive liquid that made life bearable and sometimes even enjoyable – uisgebeatha in the language of the Gael, the water of life in the language of the Saxon.

‘A glass and a pint!’ O’Donnell repeated in alarm, his Irish eyes reproachful. ‘Do ye think I’ve been robbin’ a bank? Ye’ll have a half and a half-pint and like it.’

They stood in reverent silence till they were served.

‘Funny you saying robbing a bank,’ said O’Neill. ‘I was just reading in the paper there coming in on the bus. See the Colonel’s deid.’

‘Oh aye, the Colonel, aye, so he’s deid, is he,’ said O’Donnell. Not until he had put a little water in the whiskies did he try to understand what they were talking about. He frowned. ‘How do ye mean, the Colonel?’

‘The Colonel I mean,’ said O’Neill. ‘Him they got for the Anderston bank robbery. He’s deid.’

‘Oh, I see, God rest his soul,’ said O’Donnell with routine sorrow in his flat voice.

‘The paper was saying he died in jail,’ said O’Neill. ‘Well, no’ in the jail exactly, it was in the infirmary, but he was still in jail of course because it was eight years he got.’

‘Funny,’ said O’Donnell. ‘That other bloke they got for the Ibrox bank robbery, he died in jail last month as well.’

‘Aye, it makes ye think,’ said O’Neill. ‘He was a Canadian.’

‘No, he was an Australian,’ said O’Donnell. ‘Or his pal was an Australian or wan o’ them was an Australian but no’ a Canadian.’

‘No, he was a Canadian all right,’ said O’Neill.

‘No, an Australian,’ said O’Donnell, finishing his whisky and elevating his beer.

‘Ach, ye’re thinking o’ the Ibrox bank,’ said O’Neill. ‘That was the Major, no’ the Colonel. The monocled Major they called him. ‘He was an Australian but it was his pal that died no’ him. But the Colonel was a Canadian so he was, it was the Major was an Australian.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ O’Donnell complained. ‘He was an Australian, him or his mate. Wan o’ them.’

‘Funny how these blokes come to Glasgow,’ said O’Neill. He shook the dregs of his whisky glass into his beer.

‘Ach, there’s a lot o’ folks come to Glasgow for the country roon aboot,’ said O’Donnell. ‘They’ve heard o’ the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.’

‘It’s no’ the banks o’ Loch Lomond they fellows came for,’ O’Neill retorted, pouting over the half-pint he was raising to his lips. He sipped and went on. ‘It’s the Royal Bank and the Clydesdale Bank and the Commercial Bank and the Bank of Scotland and the British Linen Bank, that’s what they came for. Ye know, there’s been a wheen o’ bank robberies in Glasgow in the last five or six year. Just you think back.’

‘Ach, I don’t know,’ said O’Donnell. ‘See the Bhoys is doing well the now. Were you there on Saturday?’

‘Aye I was there,’ said O’Neill. ‘But they’re no’ that clever. The polis aye catch up on them sooner or later so they do. The trouble with the Bhoys is they never keep it up. They go away and let the Thistle or the Thirds beat them when ye least expect it.’

‘I don’t mind so long as they beat the Rangers,’ O’Donnell replied nonchalantly, offering his mate a cigarette. ‘Here! But the polis are no’ that clever either. They get them but they don’t get the money.’

‘Ye’re right there,’ said O’Neill. ‘It says in the paper there’s thirty thousand pound still missing. But the Bhoys has got youth on their side, that’s mair nor the Rangers have. You can see it in the paper there for yourself.’

O’Donnell looked at O’Neill’s paper.

‘Funny,’ he said. ‘It was just the same wi’ the Ibrox robbery. Forty thousand it was they didn’t get. But I’d never take the Bhoys in my coupon.’

‘Oh naw, neither would I,’ said O’Neill. ‘And then there’s Napper Kennedy. Maryhill. They got him in Dublin but they never got the money. Oh naw, I’d never take them in the pools. Ye canna trust them.’

‘They got some of it did they no’?’ said O’Donnell. ‘Somebody left a suitcase in the left luggage. It was his brother wasn’t it in the Central Station?’

‘Aye, they got five thousand,’ said O’Neill. ‘Nothing much. There was mair nor thirty thousand they never got yet. And there’s Charlie Hope, him that done the Partick bank. He never got as far as Dublin. They got him in his club in St Vincent Street. A bridge club he called it, some bridge club. But they got damn all else but the smell o’ his cigar. That was another thirty or forty thousand job. They boys have something to come out to so they have.’

‘Ach, they’ll never get near it,’ said O’Donnell. ‘What I say is, the Bhoys ought to spend money on a good inside forward. They’ve got a lot o’ good young yins but the young yins need an auld heid. They’ll no’ even get gaun to the lavatory without somebody on their tail.’

‘Ach, I don’t know about that,’ O’Neill shrugged. ‘They’ve got ways and means I’ll bet you. They don’t go to all that trouble for nothing. Where would ye get a good inside forward anyway? They’ve spent good money before this and it’s been money wasted. They’re better sticking tae what they’ve got.’

‘Trouble, aye it’s trouble all right,’ said O’Donnell. ‘Eight or nine years they get, every time. But you’re right enough I suppose, some of their best servants was players they got for nothing.’

‘Well, so what?’ O’Neill asked. ‘Would you no’ do eight or nine year to come out tae thirty or forty thousand?’

‘Aye, if I was coming out tae it,’ said O’Donnell. ‘But that’s what I’m arguing, they’ll no’ come out tae it. The minute they touch it they’ll be lifted.’

‘But they’ve served their time, haven’t they?’ said O’Neill. ‘They canny put them in jail twice for the wan offence.’

‘That’s murder you’re thinking of,’ said O’Donnell. ‘Robbery’s different. Sure they’d take the money from them, wouldn’t they? They’d never let them get away wi’ it. That would make it too easy. I’d do it myself for eight or nine year.’

‘But suppose somebody else has been keeping it to feed it back to them when they come out, ye know, in regular payments, quiet like.’

‘Who could they trust to keep thirty or forty thousand for them?’ O’Donnell asked derisively. ‘Would you trust anybody wi’ that amount o’ money if you were inside for eight or nine year?’

‘I don’t know,’ said O’Neill thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never had that amount o’ money. Maybe ye could if ye made it worth their while. What’ll ye have?’

‘Just as a matter of interest, how many is that now?’ O’Donnell asked.

‘It’s only yer second,’ said O’Neill. ‘You put the first wan up when we came in and that’s all we’ve had. Do ye want the same again?’

‘Naw, no’ the drinks, the bank robberies I mean ye’re talking about,’ said O’Donnell. ‘Anderston, Ibrox, Maryhill, Whiteinch, that’s four at least.’

‘Oh, there’s been a lot mair nor that,’ said O’Neill. ‘And tae think it’s a’ lying somewhere! They’re a’ inside and the money’s outside. Thirty thousand here and forty thousand there and the same again and mair. It would break yer heart just thinking about it.’

‘Aye, it would be a bit of all right finding even wan o’ they stacks. Will ye be up seeing the Bhoys on Saturday?’

‘Aye, ye could find it but would ye have the nerve tae spend it?’ said O’Neill. ‘Och aye, I’ll be there all right.’

‘I’ll see ye here at two o’clock then,’ said O’Donnell. ‘I like seeing the Bhoys when they’re doing well.’

‘But I’ll see ye before then,’ said O’Neill. ‘Ye’ll be in here the night aboot eight, will ye no’?’

‘Och aye, sure,’ said O’Donnell. ‘The Bhoys is drawing big money the now all right.’

‘Forty-five thousand there last Saturday,’ said O’Neill.

They took no more after O’Neill had returned O’Donnell’s hospitality. They were two steady working-men, and they went straight home for their tea after their second drink. They knew they would be back in the same pub in a couple of hours. And besides Glasgow’s plague of bank robberies there was the state of the Yards on the Clyde to discuss, and there was the Celtic football team to talk about. For two Glasgow Irishmen that was a topic as inexhaustible as the weather to two Englishmen.

A Glasgow Trilogy

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