by Les Wood
Leggett waited till there was a lull in the number of folk indulging in their own form of retail-therapy and sidled up to Kyle, let him know he had something which might be of interest to Mr Boddice. Kyle had stared at him with practised do-I-give-a-shit impassiveness. When he dropped his little bombshell of where and how he had found it, Leggett was gratified to see Kyle’s composure falter, his attitude changing to one of cautious interest.
After that, it all moved quickly. Leggett explained that he’d taken the gear from Hutchison’s coat to prevent it being found by the rozzers and that he was simply handing it back to its rightful owner. Kyle eyed him suspiciously, but called Boddice on the mobile anyway. Within the hour Boddice came round personally to collect the goods, oozing charm and goodwill, giving it all sorts of crap about liking the cut of Leggett’s jib and doling out plenty of backslaps. Of course, Leggett fell for it all, and had practically pissed himself when Boddice suggested coming on board, explaining how he could use someone with Leggett’s obvious talents, how Leggett would make an ideal replacement for the late, lamented and sorely missed Mr Hutchison.
One of Boddice’s famous impulses, Leggett later learned. A whim to be indulged and humoured. None of the others were consulted on his joining the team, which put their noses well out of joint.
Tough on them, Leggett thought; dry your eyes and deal with it.
Months passed before Leggett discovered the true value of what he’d handed back to Boddice – not one or two grand, but seventeen big boys. And what had he got in return? A shitty dead-end job dealing smack in deepest Cardenhall, the arse-crack of Glasgow.
That was no return for what he’d done for Boddice. Boddice owed him. Owed him big.
True, he’d had a chance at a couple of the bigger plans Boddice hatched from time to time and, true, some things hadn’t always gone as predicted, but that wasn’t his fault. If the others had just trusted him a bit more, shown him more respect, everything would have been okay. But no, they just didn’t give a fuck about him, couldn’t see what he was really capable of, how far he was willing to go.
Oh, but they would know now alrighty. He’d been sneaking. He’d been watching.
Watching closely.
And now they were going to pay.
All of them.
The fuckers.
PART 4: ON THE DARK SIDE
Party Fears Two
For all that it belonged to such an upmarket, style-conscious store, the rear loading bay of Trusdale and Needham was just as messy as that of any other shop in Glasgow. There seemed to be an unwritten rule that such places had to be littered with cardboard boxes in various stages of rain-soaked decomposition. Crates and pallets piled in untidy towers. A plastic tarpaulin caught on a splinter or a nail, flapping in the dark like a trapped pterodactyl. As an additional requirement, the driveways and ramps must be covered in oil stains, with the smell of diesel hanging in the air in an almost tangible smirr. Tonight, it was no different.
Campbell led Prentice, Kyle and Boag down the short lane that ran from Wellington Street to the loading bays. Each wore a small rucksack, carrying the tools and accoutrements they would need for the night’s work.
The yellow glare from the sodium lamps threw shapeless shadows along the walls and into the corners of the bay, and the stark fluorescents from the security office window shone a bleak light into the alley. Campbell and the others moved around a container trailer and slunk behind a hopper bin, careful to keep out of sight of the security office. The stench of rotting food filled their nostrils.
‘Okay, wait here,’ whispered Campbell.
‘Here?’ said Prentice. ‘It bloody stinks, man.’
Campbell gritted his teeth. It felt odd to be in charge. Fuck, more than that, it was all the way past odd, round the corner and down the street to bizarro. This was Prentice he was dealing with here, ordering around. Good Christ. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Just for a couple of minutes, okay? This is the best spot, believe me. And Prentice, keep your… keep your voice down, alright?’
Prentice gave him a long, cool stare. Kyle reached out and touched him on the arm, shook him by the sleeve. Boag shuffled his feet in the background, eyes like clocks. Campbell, his heart racing, stood his ground, forced himself to stare back. Prentice blinked a few times and sighed. ‘Just hurry the fuck up then,’ he said.
Campbell licked his lips. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Wait here while Ah go in and see who’s on duty in the office. Give me a couple of minutes and Ah’ll send him out to you. Just make sure you’re ready for him and, remember, don’t rough him up. This one at least has got to be unharmed.’ He scanned their faces. ‘Got it?’
Kyle and Boag nodded, while Prentice looked away. ‘Aye, we’ll just lurk here in the dark till ye’re ready,’ he said. ‘We’re good at that. Lurking.’
Campbell took three big breaths and walked out into the loading bay.
This was it.
The point of no return.
***
Got to give them credit, John thought. Trusdale and Needham really did buy into the whole we’re-all-equals-here thing. Treat the staff as partners, not employees; make sure everyone worked together in harmony; keep everyone happy and content in their job. At least that was the theory; the image that let the corporate suits sleep a little easier at night. We’re all equal in the great Trusdale and Needham empire; we’re all just working towards the same retail goal of excellence and quality. Yes, except that not everyone was on a hundred grand a year or more for their valued and committed contribution to the company. Not by a long way.
Still, their generosity did extend to this party. It couldn’t have been cheap to hire the Hilton grand ballroom for the night, provide a free meal and, more importantly, a free bar, for the whole staff. Plus, a chance for a wee dance and a spot of karaoke later on. Not many companies would stretch that far for a celebration of some one-off event that was only going to last a month. True, there was no invite to the big celebrity bash the week before but, credit where credit’s due, Trusdale and Needham were pushing the boat out for the staff, no doubt about that.
Everyone was having a good time. John had found a seat at a table with a bunch of whooping, hollering sales staff from the womenswear floor and a few of the guys from the sports department. The normally demure, genteel girls from Womenswear – Marie, Gayle, Eileen and Christine – usually the epitome of sweet, deferential efficiency, turned out to be a gang of foul-mouthed, filthy-joke-telling wild things, tanked up on cava and Red Bull, Southern Comfort and Breezers, making a play for any guy who happened to walk past the table. The guys from Sports looked uncomfortable in their suits, more accustomed to the tight white T-shirts and trackies that was their usual uniform. Bottles of Stella and Beck’s were lined up on the table in front of them, like a small army awaiting inspection.
One of the girls was telling a story about a customer who thought a push-up bra was a sports accessory that kept her boobs out of the way when she was doing her press-up gym exercises. ‘Aye, and she needed it too,’ she was saying. ‘She was huge. Tits like a dead heat in a Zeppelin race!’
John laughed along with the rest of them, but scanned the room out the corner of his eye, checking that everyone seemed calm and relaxed, no-one rushing off to answer an urgent call from the store. He caught sight of the top table, the senior management and their various partners grinning and bearing the horror of mixing with the plebs and their ideas of what constituted having a good time. Just a bit different from the glitz and glamour of the previous week. Still, it had to be endured. All for the sake of corporate equality. The thought made John laugh all the harder. He loosened his tie and took another sip from his coke. This had the possibility of turning into not too bad a night.
Not too bad at all.
***
Campbell opened the door and walked into the security office. It was Pat Murray who was on duty. He looked up in surprise as Campbell came in.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he aske
d, pushing his cap back from his head. ‘Should you not be up at that party? Having a high auld time to yourself?’
Campbell shook his head. ‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be arsed. Ah don’t like they kinda things. Too busy, too many drunks for my liking.’
Murray looked at him in disbelief. ‘What? You mean to say you could’ve been sat here instead of me?’ he said. ‘Ah was desperate to get a ticket for that do. Just my luck Ah missed out on the ballot and ended up having to work tonight.’
‘Aye, but ye get the vouchers for a night away at a hotel for you and the wife as compensation, do ye not?’ said Campbell.
Murray raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah’d much rather be partying the night away at the Hilton, chatting up they nice perfume-counter lassies, than sitting with the wife all through a meal at some hotel in the back of beyond.’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, if only ye’d told me, we coulda done a swap.’
Campbell nodded. ‘Ah know,’ he said. ‘Sorry, mate.’
Murray looked him up and down. ‘You still haven’t answered my question yet,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ said Campbell.
‘What brings you here at this time of night when you’re not supposed to be working?’
‘Oh that,’ said Campbell. ‘Nothing really, was just passing, thought Ah’d pop my head round the door.’
Murray looked unconvinced. Campbell had to get him outside. This little exchange had gone on too long.
‘Listen,’ said Campbell. ‘You’ve got to get a look at this. You’ll never guess what Ah saw on the way in, just out there in the loading bay.’
‘What was it?’ asked Murray.
‘You’ll never believe it,’ said Campbell. ‘There’s an auld jakey trying to get some meat off a dead dug.’
‘You’re joking,’ said Murray. He keyed up the CCTV cameras for the rear entrance, brought the images onto the main monitors on the security desk. ‘Ah can’t see anything,’ he said.
Campbell moved closer to look over Murray’s shoulder. There were three cameras trained on the loading bay. He could see the hopper bin where the others were hiding, but thankfully they remained out of view. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Ye can’t see it from here. Ye’ll need to go out to have a look.’ He put his hand on Murray’s shoulder, guided him to the door. ‘You’ve gotta see this for yourself, man. The depths some folk’ll sink to.’
Murray looked at him, still a bit unsure.
‘On ye go,’ said Campbell. ‘Ah’ll look after the station while ye check it out. In fact, ye’d be as well to hunt the auld bastard, tell him to get lost.’
‘Eating a dead dog, eh? For fuck’s sake.’ Murray indicated the security station. ‘You’ll look after this while Ah’m out there?’
‘No problem,’ said Campbell, ushering him towards the door. He returned to the security station and watched on the monitors as the dark figure of Murray opened the outer rear door and crossed to one of the loading bay ramps where the second camera picked him up, his image walking down towards the hopper bin. Campbell turned his attention to the view from the third camera and watched the silent scuffle as the three figures emerged from the shadows behind the bin and jumped Murray, bundling him to the ground and pulling a dark sack over his head. The struggle was short and intense – Murray put up a good fight, but, in the end, the three of them were too much for him.
So far, so good, thought Campbell. Murray had seen no-one but him. And who was going to believe him when he later told the story it had been Campbell – or rather Orr – who had set him up?
And how could that be the case when Orr was having such a good time at the party?
***
A certain degree of leglessness was now the common state of most of the Trusdale and Needham workforce. There was a lot of shouting, a few glasses had been knocked over, and some food spilled on the floor. The Hilton staff, for the moment at least, were turning a blind eye. There had been no major damage, and John presumed T&N had come to some arrangement with the hotel to cover any substantial losses as a result of overexuberance on the part of the revellers.
Earlier, one of the high-heid-yins at the top table had got up on his hind legs to make a speech about the true spirit of Trusdale and Needham, the soaring, magisterial ethos which informed and encompassed the company mission statement and how this was trickled down to even the lowliest operative (the idiot had actually used those words). The crowd at the janitors’ and cleaners’ tables lifted their glasses in a mock toast at this, and one voice, raised a little too high for discretion, urged the speaker to ‘Get away, and lie in yer ain pish!’
The management suit appeared to take heed of this exhortation, since he quickly mumbled something about having an enjoyable time for the rest of the evening and sat down in a red-faced fluster to a polite ripple of applause, which turned into a raucous cheer as the band burst into Kool and the Gang’s Celebrate. The crowd rushed the dance floor, clapping in time to the music and responding to the band’s request to celebrate good times with the obligatory WooWoo! John tapped his finger against his glass in time to the music. In the space of a few seconds, the party had gone from Dullsville, Arizona to fucking New York, New York.
John had taken up a position at the bar. He was ordering vodkas with a bottle of coke, but tipped the vodka onto the carpet when no-one was looking, topping up his glass with the coke instead. He made sure he kept up the same drunken behaviour as the rest of the crowd, but it was all an act. He couldn’t afford to get steaming on a night like this. He was going to need all his wits about him, later, when things would kick off in earnest.
He spied McKinnon talking and laughing with some of the admin staff at one of the tables near the front of the room. That was a good sign. She was entering into the spirit of things, though not so much that she would get up and dance when someone tried to drag her onto the floor. At least she was busy, distracted, not thinking for a minute there might be four guys prowling the store, inching their way to the most expensive diamond in the world.
John checked his watch. Ten forty-two. It wouldn’t be long now till he performed his little party piece.
***
Kyle and Prentice dragged the hooded Murray into the security office. Murray struggled a bit, kicking out and squirming as they pinned him to the floor.
‘Stay at fucking peace,’ said Kyle. ‘Or you’re gonnae regret it.’ He brought out an iron bar from his rucksack, tapped it against the side of Murray’s head. ‘Feel that?’ Kyle asked. A muffled acknowledgement came from inside the sack. ‘Good,’ said Kyle. ‘Cos if you create anything here pal, this is coming down on yer skull big time.’ To reinforce his point he rested the bar against Murray’s forehead. Murray relaxed, went limp on the floor. Kyle knelt beside him. ‘Now, you see that’s the sort of co-operation that will have you going home to the wife and weans in one piece, with a good story to tell the lads in the pub, instead of waking up in the Royal Infirmary not able to feel yer legs.’
Kyle signalled to Prentice, who came over with a plastic cable tie which he used to bind Murray’s hands and legs. He took a cord from his pocket and gagged Murray through the folds of the sack.
‘Can you breathe in there?’ asked Kyle.
‘Fuck him if he can’t,’ said Prentice.
Kyle ignored him. ‘Just nod your head if you’re okay,’ he said.
Murray gave a muffled grunt, but nodded anyway.
Prentice grabbed Murray by the wrists and dragged him into the corner of the room, throwing him against a set of filing cabinets. He turned to Campbell. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘What next?’
Campbell rummaged in his rucksack and brought out a large horseshoe magnet which he placed on the desk in front of the security monitors. ‘We’ll need this in a minute,’ he said. ‘But first, there are three other security boys on duty, patrolling the store. We need to take care of them.’ He flicked a couple of switches on the security console on the desk and spoke into the store intercom, deepening his voice to make it sound more l
ike Murray. ‘Security base room to Patrol. This is Pat here.’ Prentice went over and placed a foot on Murray’s chest, preventing him from making a sound. ‘Hey guys,’ said Campbell into the mic. ‘Got a wee bit of a situation down here. Couple of neds fannying about in the loading bay. Wonder if you could come down, give us a wee hand?’ There were a few seconds of static and then three replies clicked through in quick succession. They were on their way.
As they were arriving at different times from various parts of the store it was an easy task to pick them off one by one as they came through the door of the security office. Prentice and Kyle worked quickly – lunging from behind the door, a sharp thump with the iron bar to the base of the skull, and they dropped as if their plug had been pulled. Boag hauled them into the corner beside Murray and tied and gagged them, covered their heads with a sack. Campbell roped the four men together and secured them to a pillar beside the filing cabinets. With the exception of Murray they were going to be out of it for a long time. Campbell hoped they would suffer no lasting injuries; he’d worked with these guys, shared a joke or two, discussed the football, had a laugh. They were ordinary, honest blokes trying to scrape a living.
‘What’s the magnet for?’ asked Boag.
Campbell took the magnet from the desk and opened a cabinet at the rear of the office. Inside was a bank of computer monitors with an array of black boxes with blinking red and green lights set below. Campbell slowly passed the magnet over each of the black boxes. He turned to see the others looking at him quizzically. ‘CCTV,’ he said. ‘All the images are stored and recorded on hard drives inside these gizmos. Magnet erases the whole shebang, fucks them up goodstyle. There’s no way they’ll be able to extract anythin from these now.’
‘Are ye sure?’ asked Prentice. ‘Ah don’t want some tiny wee flickering image of me to be left in there somewhere, just because your magnet didn’t work right.’
