The Long Glasgow Kiss

‘Nothing looks like it’s been disturbed,’ he said. ‘Maybe you frightened them off, Billy. Don’t look like there’s anyone here now.’ His boots ground grittily on the floor. He was looking around himself. Don’t look under the desk, I beamed the thought to him. Whatever you do, you big Teuchter bastard, don’t look under the desk.

‘Billy, you go and telephone the number you’ve got for the proprietor,’ he lilted. ‘I’ll stay here until he arrives.’

‘All right, Iain … I’ll do that.’ An older voice. Eager. Acquiescent to authority. Good, I thought, one less to worry about. But I’d have to make a break for it past the copper.

I heard the night watchman close the door as he left. The copper was still standing there only inches away from me. My mind sped through the options open to me. Barnier would take at least half an hour to get here, but there was no guarantee that another copper wouldn’t arrive in the meantime.

Suddenly, the desk above me creaked. I almost bolted from my hiding place but kept calm: he was sitting on the edge of the desk. There was the sound of a match being struck, then the smell of cigarette smoke. I heard a muted ping: a telephone being picked up. Dialling. The unseen policeman asked to speak to the duty sergeant and told him that he was attending an attempted break-in and gave the address. An attempted break-in. The idiot hadn’t searched the place properly but had decided there was no one on the premises. I silently offered heartfelt thanks to the City of Glasgow Police for recruiting from the Highlands.

My heart picked up a pace. I knew that I had to act as soon as he put the receiver down. He didn’t think there was anybody here and I could catch him off guard. But I was in the worst possible position from which to launch an attack. I hung onto every word he said into the telephone.

‘All right, Sergeant,’ he said. I heard the Bakelite clunk of the receiver in its cradle.

I was about to make my move when I heard the sound of pencils hitting the floor. There was a creak as the cop stood up from the edge of the desk. I guessed he had knocked the pencils off the table. Instead of rushing, I eased myself out from under the desk, making no sound. I turned and straightened myself up slowly. He was a uniform all right, and he was bent over, cursing poetically as only Highlanders can, gathering up the pencils. He stood up again and turned towards me.

He didn’t even have the time for surprise or shock to register on his face. I fetched him a blow across his left temple with my sap and he dropped to the floor. There was more calculation in that blow than Einstein had put into the theory of relativity: if I killed a copper then I’d hang. And if they couldn’t trace me, some other mug would swing for it. Justice had to be seen to be done. By the same token I needed him incapacitated long enough for me to make a getaway.

Looking down, I saw that he was stunned, rather than out cold. Perfect. I grabbed my bag, vaulted over him and out of the door, switching off the lights as I did. Anything to confuse my dazed sheep-botherer.

I saw ‘Billy’, the flat-capped night watchman, illuminated by the single lamppost, about a hundred and fifty yards off. He froze when he caught sight of me. I turned in the other direction and shouted to an imaginary associate already out of sight.

‘Run, Jimmy! It’s the watchy!’ I yelled, doing my best Glaswegian impersonation. I raced off towards where I’d cut the hole in the fence. I lobbed my bag over and commando-crawled through the gap I had cut.

I checked behind me: there was no sign of the constable and the elderly watchman would not risk chasing after two Drumchapel desperadoes.

I sprinted along the cobbled road and dived behind the bushes next to the railway alcove. One more check backwards: nothing. I took off the sweater and wiped my face with it, getting as much burnt cork off as possible. I threw my burglar kit into the boot of the car, put on my suit jacket and jumped in behind the driver’s seat. Keeping my lights switched off, I reversed out onto the main road. I drove slowly, with the lights still off until I reached the end of South Street. Only then did I pick up speed and switch the lights on. I drove into the countryside and out of the City of Glasgow Police jurisdiction. Ironically, I took the Greenock Road and passed only one car travelling in the opposite direction. At that time of night it was no surprise that the roads were dead and I wondered if the car I’d passed had been Barnier on his way in from his home in Langbank.