Gordon Brown - 59 Minutes

I nodded and she vanished into the kitchen. I had no idea why the change in attitude. Like Maria’s change of mind in Spain, women seemed a mystery to me at the moment.

I got up and went to the window. The morning was coming on strong and it looked like the sun was going to be a winner. I spotted Rachel’s blue Mondeo and for a split second I saw a figure to the left of the car before he disappeared round the corner.

On gut feel I stepped back from the window, counted to thirty and stepped back again. The figure was there and, when I reappeared, he bolted. I recognised him and my heart froze. It was one of the goon patrol. How the hell did they find me here?

I did my party trick again and caught him out again. Not the brightest light-bulb in the box. Rachel came back in with two mugs of tea.

‘I need to go,’ I said.

‘Fuck me. One minute I’m throwing you out and you hang around like a wet puppy. I make you a tea and you want to go. Where to — the hostel?’

‘Rachel you don’t need me in your life. I’m trouble and at the moment I’m more nonsense than I’m worth. I didn’t mean for you to get mixed up in this. I just needed a bed for a night and your name popped into my head.’

‘Get me mixed up in what. Are you telling me that there’s more to you turning up than just looking for a bed?’

I dropped my head a little.

‘You don’t need to know.’

But she did. If the goon patrol really wanted me and I did a runner they might decide to use Rachel as a ‘punch and tell’ machine to find where I had gone.

‘There are two men after me. At least I think there are two. There could be more.’

‘And?’

‘And one of them is standing at the corner of your street doing a crap job of pretending he’s not there.’

She crossed to the window and looked out.

‘Black jacket and blue shirt with greasy hair?’

‘That’s him.’

‘You brought them to my house?’

‘Not deliberately. I didn’t know where I was going last night.’

‘So they followed you.’

‘No. I checked. I made sure I wasn’t being followed before I told the taxi driver where I was going.’

I told her the story of last night and she laughed.

‘And you didn’t think that they might check with the local taxi firms for any pick ups?’

‘It ain’t that easy. They don’t just hand out that sort of info to anyone. Plus I left from a strange address.’

‘Big is it? Eaglesham? Do they have a lot of taxi pick ups at two o’clock on a Tuesday morning?’

‘But they would need to have an ‘in’ with the firm.’

‘Or they just lean on the controller. What would you rather do? Give out a fare’s details or have your head caved in? Come on, you did it all the time in the old days.’

She could be right. She was probably right.

‘So why not break in here and take care of me?’

‘Maybe they only just found out where you are. Maybe they didn’t want a witness. I don’t know. Who are they?’

A good question. I really didn’t want to go into the whole story but it looked like she was in this, one way or the other.

‘You know the French man that Martin said I was in trouble with. Well I think they are working for him.’

‘And is Frenchie bad news?’

‘You have no idea.’

‘Brilliant. So now I’m in the crap with you. If you fuck off do you think they are going to let me go freely about my business without answering a few questions?’

I shook my head.

‘Genius. Fucking genius. I said you were bad news and I was right on the money. Shit.’

She stubbed out the cigarette, gulped the hot tea as if it was cold and lit another cigarette.

‘This is not fucking good. Do you think they will risk coming in here?’

‘Maybe. After all they had no qualms about breaking into Martin’s house last night. For all they knew he could have been at home.’

Rachel sat down at the window table and looked out and said, ‘He’s still there.’

‘We need to go. He’s not that stupid that he doesn’t know he’s been spotted. I take it we can get out the rear and through the back green?’

‘Sure and then what? You piss off and I wait for a knock. Good thinking, batman.’

‘Well we can’t stay here.’

‘Why not? We wait on them, I hand you over and I’m home free. I would say that sounds about right for me.’

‘Dream on. They’re not going to lift me, or worse kill me, and let you hang around to ID them. The French man is not stupid. Like it or lump it we are in this together for a while.’

‘I’m not in anything with anyone.’

I said nothing and I saw resignation cross her face. I had seen that look on a hundred people’s faces when they realised there was no way out.

‘I have an idea,’ I said ‘I need time to sort this out. If I can square it with the French man then you are off the hook. I just need space to figure out how. Once I’m sorted then you are sorted.’

‘And if they catch us? Then what?’

‘You are no worse off than you are right now.’

She cracked another cigarette and stood up. I watched her pace around the room and wished she would just get on with making the only bloody decision that she had available.

She walked up to me.

‘OK. We leave and then you sort out your shit. If you don’t then I’m going to take things into my own hands. Agreed?’

‘Agreed. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.’

‘We need my car. It’s the only transport I have and we won’t get far on the bus.’

She paced some more.

‘I have an idea how to get to it without any violence’.

Rachel had hidden talents and, as she told me what to do, I smiled thinking that she would have made a fine addition to my team in the old days.

She rummaged in the kitchen and packed some stuff under her coat. We exited the house and made our way to the ground floor. Rachel opened the door to the back green and slipped out of sight. I made for the front close.

I emerged into a warm day. Nice day to die I thought.

The goon was standing at the corner and when he saw me he stiffened. I walked towards him, but kept to the other side of the road. Twenty yards along the pavement I stopped. He stared at me and then his mate joined him. I walked another few feet and then a few more. They started to cross the road and I stopped again.

When they were half way across I lifted my hand and, with a flourish, flicked them a V. They went into overdrive and sprinted to the pavement. I turned and showed them my heels. At Rachel’s close I dived in and ran to the bottom of the stairs and stopped.

The goons barrelled in to the close and saw me. I put leather to concrete and headed out the door to the back green and they followed.

As I ran into the space behind the tenement I hung a sharp left and dropped to the ground. A clothes rope was lying next to the wall and I picked it up, hauling it towards me. With Rachel at the other end the rope was pulled tight about two feet off the ground.

The goon patrol hit the rope at full speed and my palm picked up a rope burn as the material was dragged through my hand. The men went down and Rachel was up and heading for the door. I joined her, but one of the goons was quick and reached out — grabbing my foot. I twisted but he held tight. I shouted out and Rachel turned to see what was going on.

The second goon was trying to get to his feet. Rachel ran back and, with a kick that Bruce Lee would have been proud to call his own, she landed her heel on the first goon’s head. He screamed and let go of my foot. I pulled myself through the door and Rachel followed me. She slammed the door shut and turned the key that she had left in the lock. The sound of the second goon hitting the door reverberated around the close and we ran.