‘What’s a Credit Union?’
I felt stupid asking but it was a hole in my education.
‘A kind of community bank. It’s run by locals and lends small amounts of money at decent rates and allows local people to save money without having to go to the bank. They also do stuff like pay your bills for you, arrange insurance and so on. There used to be lots of them when times were bad. They seem to be coming back into fashion in some areas. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of them given your career.’
He was referring to my loan sharking days and to be fair I was surprised at my ignorance. Maybe there had never been any on my patch?
‘Where are they?’
‘There’s still a shed load of them around but there are only three that would have boxes for this key. There is one over in Easterhouse. One up in Castlemilk and one over in Drumchapel.’
It figures. Easterhouse, Castlemilk and Drumchapel were (along with Pollok) Glasgow ’s ‘townships’ built in the sixties.
Overcrowding was becoming a real issue for Glasgow in the fifties and the council targeted some twenty nine districts for renewal or demolition. Close on a hundred thousand homes met the wrecking ball and many of the inhabitants were shipped out to the new build ‘townships’ on the edge of the city. At the time it was hailed as a master stroke. In truth Glasgow lost its heart and soul, as row after row of tenements were flattened.
The planners also gave little thought to infrastructure. Thousands of people found themselves crammed into housing with few facilities. Castlemilk with a population of close on fifty thousand didn’t get a pub until the early eighties — thirty years after the first house went up.
All four areas became hotbeds for gangs and trouble but now there were third world debt levels of cash being invested to rid the city of that legacy.
‘If I turn up with a key will they let me use it?’
‘No. You need the chit that came with the key or proof of ownership. They won’t use the boxes that much now. They are not stupid. They may even have trashed them although I doubt it’
‘Shit.’
I got him to write down as much as he knew about each Credit Union and left.
As I walked back to the hostel it occurred to me that I might just be about to get back into the ‘breaking and entering’ market again.
To do that I need to tool up.
Chapter 27
Sunday January 13 th 2008
That fuckwit Ron talked. I should have guessed. I was on the hostel steps yacking to ‘the Stink’ when a black Ford Mondeo cruised passed. Not unusual but when it circled for the fourth time it caught my attention. It was too early for a gang on a ‘beat a tramp’ trip so I just sat and talked, with one eye looking out for the Mondeo. When it slid by for the fifth time I told ‘the Stink’ I was going in for a cup of tea and he nodded.
Once inside I pulled up a chair near one of the front windows and sipped the monkey brew as I scanned for the Mondeo but it didn’t reappear. My wrist was giving me gip and my ribs were joining in the fun. The last thing I needed was some more aggro.
Around six o’clock I went out for a walk and a think. I needed some tools of the trade but I was skint. I was just wondering if Ron still kept a spare kit when the Mondeo screamed around the corner and the doors flew open.
I didn’t wait to see who was emerging and turned and ran. I hit High St with a full turn of speed and crossed the road to the wail of a horn as a bus slammed on its brakes to avoid me. As I made the pavement on the far side I looked round and saw two figures hot on my tail. Behind them the Mondeo had started moving towards me.
I headed into the Merchant City with no idea of where I was going to end up. All I knew was that I was a target and the beating the other night might be the start of something quite nasty. I hauled my backside onto Albion St and headed north.
You can only keep running flat out for a short time and I was already down to a jog. Add to that the cast on my wrist and I was struggling. Fortunately so were my pursuers.
I crossed Ingram St and kept on up Albion St and passed the old Glasgow Daily News building. I was entering Strathclyde University land and, as I ran out onto George St, I turned left and headed for George Square. I needed people around me. I was less likely to take a kicking in a public place.
I looked back. The pursuers were at the corner of Albion St and were getting into the Mondeo. I slowed to a walk. George St was one way against them and I walked out into the square, heaving breath, but safe for the moment.
The town was coming off the back of rush hour and there were still a fair number of people doing the ‘going home’ thing. I dropped into one of the benches that ring the western end of the square and tried to blend in while keeping a sharp lookout for the Mondeo.
It appeared five minutes later and I hunkered down as it drove by less than twenty feet away. It turned right to circle the square. I got up and headed away from it and down towards the river.
Walking down Queen St I turned onto Royal Exchange Square and then down onto Buchanan St — thank you Glasgow council for the foresight in introducing pedestrian only zones.
Every few steps I looked back expecting to see the pursuers but if they were there they were doing their best Ninja trick and keeping out of view.
As I walked I considered my options. The hostel was out. I had no idea who these jokers were but they knew where I lived and it wouldn’t take a genius to stake out the hostel and wait for me. I had no one I could turn to. My return to Glasgow had been as close to a secret as I could have made it. Ron seemed an obvious mouth to have yacked.
It occurred to me that there might be another reason. The gang of boys that had beat up on me had used my name a few times and maybe the Mondeo gang and the beating weren’t unconnected.
I passed the subway entrance at St Enoch’s Square but dismissed it as an escape route — even if I had wanted to I didn’t have the money for the ride.
I crossed over Clyde St and stepped onto the river walk that runs along the north bank of the River Clyde. To my left was a suspension bridge for pedestrians that had a claim to fame as the setting for some of the movie Gorky Park — it would seem that Moscow and Glasgow look similar in some lights. I turned away from it and headed down river, ducking as the walkway ran under one of the many bridges that cross the Clyde.
On the other side I began to walk slowly, watching the brown carpet of water slide along beside me. There was no sign of activity on the river. This far up, there never is. In the Clyde ’s hey day it was entirely possible to cross the river at this point by jumping from ship to ship. Now you were lucky if you saw a duck paddling.
On the far side of the river some kids were trying to hit a plank of wood floating mid stream with stones. I watched them for a while wondering at where those days had gone: the carefree afternoons when the riverbank transformed itself into one giant playground. The smallest of the kids let rip with his right arm and scored a bull’s eye on the plank. A shout went up and he high fived thin air for thirty seconds.
The tallest spotted me watching them and flicked me a V before shouting something that was lost on the wind.
I think it rhymed with anchor?
I reached the Kingston Bridge — a giant concrete structure that stretches sixty or seventy feet above the river. I read once it was Europe ’s busiest bridge and the endless roar of tyre on asphalt did nothing to dispel the belief.
The bridge is a single span between two mighty piers. On my side a sign telling me that Her Majesty the Queen Mother had opened the bridge on June 26th 1970 was embedded in the concrete. I was wondering what I was doing on that day when I heard the slam of a door and turned to see the Mondeo less than ten yards away and the two goons launching themselves in my direction.