Читать книгу The Quaker - Liam McIlvanney - Страница 16

‘It’s Jeff Arnold, Rider of the Range!’

‘Fuck off.’ Dazzle was laughing, he couldn’t keep the pistol straight. He dropped his arm and composed himself and raised it again, fired.

Nothing. The others jeered.

‘It’s too low!’ Dazzle gestured with the gun. ‘You’d never target somebody at that height. What are you aiming for, his knackers?’

Five big bottles of Bass, empty, stood in a line on top of a rock, thirty feet off, under a stand of silver birch.

‘Give us it here.’ Cursiter took the gun from Dazzle. He broke it open, dug a fistful of rounds from his jacket pocket and thumbed them home. He snapped the cylinder shut, planted his feet and sighted down his straight right arm and squeezed off six shots in quick succession.

The bottles shone guilelessly in the dappled light. The men’s laughter rang round the clearing. Cursiter ran his tongue along his upper gum, shaking his head.

Now it was Campbell’s turn, the new guy, the fifth man. Cursiter reloaded the pistol and held it out by the barrel. Campbell took the gun in both hands, turning it over as though it was an object whose precise purpose eluded him. He was younger than the others, early twenties, with long straight hair and bell-bottom cords that whispered when he walked. He shuffled over to where Cursiter had stood and squinted at the bottles. Holding the gun tight against his waist like a quick-draw artist he pulled the trigger.

The middle of the five bottles burst with a bright pock, the glass dissolving in a silvery fizz. They all cheered and Campbell turned smiling, his hands spread in benediction, pistol dangling from his index finger.

‘House,’ Paton said. ‘Thank fuck.’ He was on his feet, dusting the seat of his jeans. He hadn’t been keen on this shooting lark to begin with. ‘Can we get some work done now?’

Cursiter took the pistol and stowed it in his jacket and they moved off in a ragged group, five men, stretching and yawning, down towards the cottage at the lochside.

Dazzle had booked it in a false name, collecting the key from the hotel in Rowardennan. They were supposed to be a party of hikers. They’d done a solid two hours’ planning in the cottage that morning before breaking for lunch and a spot of extempore target practice. Jenny McIndoe, Cursiter’s contact in the auctioneer’s, would be joining them that evening with the floor-plans of Glendinnings.

The path narrowed for the final stretch and they marched in Indian file out of the trees. The white block of the cottage had swung into view when Dazzle, at the head of the file, gave a backhanded slap to Paton’s chest. They all bumped to a stop.

‘Is it Jenny? Is Jenny early?’

A dark blue Rover 2000 was parked beside Stokes’s Zodiac on the apron of gravel in front of the cottage.

‘It’s not hers.’ Cursiter was frowning. ‘That’s not Jenny’s car.’

They stared at the scene and a stout, bald-headed man in an orange cardigan came round the side of the cottage He stopped in his tracks when he saw the five men framed by the trees.

They started forward, awkward, bumping each other, trying to look normal. Normal hikers. The man stepped out across the grass to meet them.

‘George Brodie,’ he said. ‘Landlord. You’ll be Mr Maxwell’s party.’

‘I’m Maxwell.’ Dazzle had his hand out. The landlord shook it. He took the others’ hands in turn. No one else ventured a name.

‘Right. Well. You’ve brought the weather anyway.’ Brodie had his hands on his hips, like a fitness instructor. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were settled all right. Had everything you need.’

Dazzle nodded. ‘We’re fine, thanks.’

‘The shop in the village.’ Brodie jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘It shuts early. Catches people out. Anyway,’ he was moving towards the car, ‘I got some provisions.’ He hauled on the Rover’s passenger door, lifted two carrier bags from the footwell. ‘Just milk, bread. What have you.’

Dazzle took the bags. ‘That’s very kind of you. Appreciate it.’

Brodie shrugged, hands in his trouser pockets, thumbs out. ‘You’ll be off up the loch the morrow, then?’

He was looking at their feet, Paton noticed. Dazzle was the only one wearing hiking boots. Three of them wore trainers; Stokes in bloody winkle-pickers.

‘That’s the plan.’ Dazzle was nodding again. ‘Up to Crianlarich. Take it from there.’

‘Right. Well, the weather should hold. If you believe the radio.’ Brodie scowled up, shading his eyes with the fat blade of his hand. They all stood around looking at the sky as if something was about to drop out of it.

‘So.’ Dazzle hoisted one of the bags. ‘Thanks again, Mr Brodie. Much obliged.’

‘Righto.’ Brodie gripped the roof of the Rover as he eased himself into the driver’s seat. He reached for the door-handle. ‘Just post the key through the letter box when you’re leaving.’

‘Will do.’

They watched him three-point-turn beside Stokes’s Zodiac, spraying gravel, nosing past Dazzle’s Triumph. Too many cars: they should have thought of that. The Rover gave a double toot of its horn as it wobbled up the track.

Inside, Stokes went straight to the fridge and hauled out more bottles of Bass, two at a time, set them up on the table. He went down the line of bottles with his bottle-opener, his elbow jerking. The bottle-tops skittered on to the table. Each man reached wordlessly for his bottle, tilted it in a spread palm.

The fun and games among the trees seemed a long time ago. Paton took a matchstick and scraped some mud from the sole of his training shoe. There was an odd smell in the room, he’d noticed it earlier. Cinnamon, maybe. Something sweet and spicy.

‘You think he …?’ Stokes jerked his head at the window, the path leading up to the trees.

‘You mean is the landlord deaf?’ Paton carried his bottle over to an armchair in the corner and flopped down. ‘I don’t think so. Nor, unfortunately, is he blind.’ Paton waggled his bottle at the table, where a street map of Glasgow was spread out.

‘It’s a map,’ Dazzle said. ‘So what?’

There was a pencil line tracing the getaway route from Bath Street to the Gorbals but you probably couldn’t have seen it from the window.

‘Five guys with Glasgow accents,’ Paton said. ‘A map of the city of Glasgow.’

‘A map doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Not yet it doesn’t.’

Dazzle shrugged. There wasn’t much point in taking this further. The guy was suspicious or he wasn’t. He’d heard them shooting in the woods. So what? What did that prove? Plenty of people went shooting in the woods.

‘Hey, there’s peaches and corned beef here and everything.’ Campbell had been unpacking the carrier bags. He turned to face the others, hoisting a tin of peaches in each hand, grinning.

‘Highland hospitality.’ Dazzle stood, yawned. ‘Are we working here or what?’

They all sat at the table. Stokes reported on the van. It was handling well. He’d driven it round Govan a few times. He was planning to stow a can of petrol in the back (‘That’s a little Dillinger trick’) in case they got involved in a prolonged chase. The van was off the road for the moment, getting a decal at one of McGlashan’s garages.

‘He know about it?’ Paton said.

‘McGlashan? Does he know about the job? No.’ Stokes spread his hands. ‘He knows there is a job, aye. But he doesn’t know what it is.’

‘He’s expecting his taste, though,’ Cursiter said.

This was why London was better, Paton thought. Nobody ran London. It was too big to run. You had the freedom to work how you liked. You were your own man.

‘Yeah. Well. We’ve been through that.’

They worked on the game-plan. They finalized times. They’d go in at 5.30, long before the staff started to arrive, before the buses started running on Bath Street.

They broke it into pieces, little blocks of narrative. The entry. The watchman. The safe. They went over each piece. The time before, the time after. They went over it again. Leaving the building. The getaway. The idea was that Paton would take the goods – the jewels and any cash – in a toolbox and stow them in the safe house. Only Stokes knew the address of Paton’s safe house; the others just knew it was in Bridgeton.

Paton’s plan was that the string would make off in the van while he strolled down the hill to Central Station and caught a low-level train to Bridgeton.

‘Or you could just use your time-machine,’ Dazzle said.

‘How’s that?’

‘They shut the station at Bridgeton,’ Stokes explained. ‘Few years back. You can’t get a train.’

Paton looked round the faces, nodded. ‘Buses still run?’

‘Last time I looked.’

‘I’ll take the bus, then.’

Cursiter set his bottle down with a thump. ‘You just walk down Hope Street with the gear in your hand and jump on a bus? Quite the thing?’

‘We’ve covered this,’ Paton said. ‘The best getaway is the one that isn’t. The one no one clocks as a getaway. I’m just a guy on his way to work.’

In another half-hour they had done all they could do until Jenny arrived with the plans. Dazzle produced a bottle of Grouse. The others started talking about stuff they would buy. Cars. John Stephen suits. Trips to New York. High-class hoors. Paton thought about time. How much time his share would buy him. How much time before he would have to do another job. Or the time he’d spend inside if they got caught.

Then they heard the hiss of wheels, a car door slam, high-heels mashing through gravel.

Dazzle opened the door.

The first thought Paton had was how far out of Cursiter’s league this woman was. You knew, as soon as you clapped eyes on her, that she had fucked Cursiter as a purely instrumental act, a means of getting her hands on a share of a hundred thousand pounds. She was wearing a red woollen coat, cinched at the waist, belted, black high-heels. Her hair was black, glossy, bobbed.

She stood there enjoying the impression she was making.

‘The age of chivalry is past,’ she said. No one knew what to say to that. Her shoulders slumped theatrically. ‘What’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?’

‘Sorry!’ Dazzle was on his feet, scuttling over to the cupboard for another glass.

‘Did you bring the plans?’ Paton was put out by the woman’s appearance. He’d expected someone nervous and fretting, a dolly from the typing pool, out of her depth. The woman’s poise and beauty changed the balance in the room. Her beauty seemed to put her in charge.

‘I was about to ask who’s the gaffer here.’ She took the glass from Dazzle and held it high, in front of her face. Her nails were lacquered a vivid red. ‘Think we’ve answered that question.’

‘Our friend here put it together,’ Paton said, nodding at Dazzle. He didn’t know if it was a names thing, if she was supposed to know their names.

‘But now you’re in charge.’

‘I’ve had some experience.’

‘I’ll bet.’

She set her drink down on the table and started working the buttons on her red coat. Cursiter rose and went to stand behind her. As he drew the unbuttoned coat from her shoulders, he leaned in to kiss her on the neck. She flinched away, clapped a palm to her neck as if slapping a mosquito, wiped the fingers down the skin. ‘I think we’ve had enough of that, darling, haven’t we?’ She was wearing a short shift dress in a clingy black fabric.

Cursiter turned away. He tossed her coat on the back of a kitchen chair.

What she drew from her bag, rolled up in a tube and tied with string, were the blueprints from when the building was remodelled as an auctioneer’s. Previously the address had been a private house. The architect had partitioned some of the rooms for offices and knocked others together to form the showroom.

Paton spread the blueprints out on the kitchen table, on top of the map, and the others gathered round.

‘Somebody’s not going to miss these?’ Campbell asked.

‘What’s to miss? They go back where they came from tomorrow.’

The blueprints showed the basement door, the point of entry. The basement floor held storerooms and the nightwatchman’s cubbyhole, down a corridor on the right-hand side. On the ground floor were offices, toilets, a small staff tearoom. The first floor held the big showroom and the manager’s office, where the safe was housed.

‘This comes off,’ Paton said. ‘Even if it doesn’t come off, they’re going to come for you. You know that. They’ll know it’s an inside job.’

She was looking out the window and she raised her arms now in a long, slow stretch, fingers interlaced, her shoulder blades lifting in the clingy fabric. The window was turning glossy in the dusk. Paton could see the glass clouding where she blew out a sigh. She twisted her head to look coolly at Paton. ‘You think I’ll fall apart, break under questioning, blurt it all out?’

‘I think you should be prepared. I think these people can be very persistent.’

‘There’s seventeen people know about this sale. I imagine at least some of them have more interesting backgrounds than mine. Anyway,’ she flashed a smile at Paton; ‘if it comes off, there’s other things we need to decide. Like who’s getting what?’

‘Nothing to decide,’ Paton said brusquely. ‘Six-way split. Equal shares. End of discussion.’ Paton stood up. He could have argued for a larger share of the take – he was the skilled tradesman, after all; the rest were just manual labour – but he knew from experience the trouble this caused. An equal split was clean and straightforward. If the take was big enough you didn’t worry about trying to leverage a bigger share. Make the split, move on, everyone’s happy.

‘You’ll be taken care of,’ Dazzle told her. ‘Same as everyone else. No one’s stiffing anybody.’

She looked at Paton through her fringe. ‘Well, I hope that’s not the case.’

They drove back separately, leaving ten minutes between each car. Paton went last, in Dazzle’s Triumph, the smell of dog, dog hairs on the upholstery, he thought of the dog resting its chin on his thigh, the mobile eyebrows, the sad, wet, intelligent eyes.

‘That Jennifer,’ Dazzle said, shaking his head. He looked across at Paton then back to the road.

Paton cracked the window an inch, kept it open while they drove, the smells of the night mingling with his cigarette smoke.

‘I handle gelly for a living,’ Paton said. ‘Not for fun.’