Craig Robertson - Random

I settled on it. The only question was where and when.

Work and weekly bingo were the only constants in Raedale’s life but neither worked for me. Both were far too public and with far too many people. It would need to be one of the Friday nights out with the Tesco girls and they happened maybe three weeks out of four, depending, I guessed, on shift patterns.

On the first Friday after I had established a plan of action and readied myself, a bunch of them headed into town after work and went into Bar Budda on Sauchiehall Street. It was time.

I went into the Wetherspoons across the road, parked myself on a stool at a table by the window. I waited an hour with a pint in my hand and an eye on Budda. I gave them time to settle in and get a few drinks down their necks, gave it time for the place to fill up. If they left I’d see them, if they didn’t I’d find them.

It wasn’t hard to imagine fat Fiona sitting there moaning about the music, the heat, young people today and the price of drink, bitching about colleagues who weren’t there and, as soon as their backs were turned, those who were. She’d have a face on her like a plate of mortal sins and her mouth pursed tighter than a midgie’s chuff. She must have made great company.

I nursed my pint of shandy for the full hour I had promised myself, my eyes rarely straying from the door of Budda for more than a few seconds, whether looking at it directly or in the reflection of the window’s neon glare facing towards Holland Street. Many more went in but neither Raedale or any of the shop girls left. She was there, my window of opportunity lying at her feet or clutched to her fearsome bosom.

The hour slipped past and I drained the last of the beer before leaving, crossing the road and going into Budda. The place was pleasingly mobbed and it took me a minute to see the Tesco crew crammed round a long table in the wooden pagoda-type effect to the back right.

Dark, busy, perfect.

I ordered another pint of shandy and took up a spot as near to them as I could without being openly in their view.

They were a typical works night out crowd. Loud, laughing, drunk and happy with one notable exception. Fat, frosty Fiona had a look of disdain that would have turned milk. I was sure she was only there so that the rest of them wouldn’t be talking about her. It certainly couldn’t have been because she wanted to enjoy herself.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught her waving her white handbag at them as a signal of some intent. She evidently wanted to go to the toilet.

I watched with interest as she began to squeeze her way out of the padded grey and purple seats, ungracefully extricating herself from the wedge that had been formed between a short blonde girl on one side and a spotty student-type on the other. They both got a glare, as if the lack of room was their fault and not her excess lard. As she made the last unsteady movement between seat and table, she put her half-open handbag on the tabletop for balance. Jackpot, I thought to myself. Penalty kick. Open goal.

Fiona Raedale was one podgy step out of the seat and towards the bar area when I staggered into her, knocking the bag from her hand and sending her spinning back onto the lap of the startled female student. I apologized, slurring it as best I could, hearing muffled giggles from the supermarket girls as Raedale fumed.

I knelt to the floor, apologizing over and over, and picked up the items that had spilled out of fat Fiona’s handbag, stuffing them back in as quickly as I could. She grabbed the bag from me, embarrassment fuelling her naturally crabbit nature even further. Idiot, she rasped, checking that her purse was still where it should be. Righteous indignation masqueraded as steam coming out of her ears as she pushed past me and stormed towards the toilets.

I stood with my back to the Tesco crowd and shrugged apologetically to her retreating form before slouching out of the pub and back onto Sauchiehall Street.

That was it. Job done. All that was left to do was walk away.

And wait. And wonder.

I knew it would happen – except in the unlikely event that she noticed I had swapped her asthma inhaler for a seemingly identical one. It was just the where and the when that I couldn’t be sure of.

I walked to the first corner and took a left up Dalhousie Street, turned right onto Hill Street and made for the side of the road that was in shadow. I kept going until I came to the corner of Rose Street and there, in the twenty yards of relative safety that afforded me, I changed.

I turned my jacket inside out, switching it from black to green. I took off the baseball cap that had been low on my head since I entered Budda. I tore off the dark wig that lurked beneath it. I straightened up to my natural height, a few inches taller than the way I’d been carrying myself.

It wasn’t much maybe but I was confident it would be enough. The simple fact was that I was smarter than the people who may have seen me. The risk of knocking over that bag was one that had to be taken but I had known I needed extra insurance. If anyone had seen the guy that banged into Fiona Raedale and picked that bag back up, if anyone remembered him and connected him to what happened later then they would have remembered a shorter, dark-haired guy with several days of growth on his chin. Not me.

The wait and the wonder. The where and the when.

I was hoping it didn’t happen in the pub although there was no doubt that there was a danger of that. The hassle and humiliation of being knocked over might have been enough to make her use the inhaler. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it happened there. Well, not mine anyway – it would definitely be the end of hers. The mass audience it would undoubtedly create would be a bonus, a spectacle like that would guarantee front-page news, but it would make it far too close to my being there. No, later would be better.

I walked on in the shadows, my mind full of the possibilities, when I heard the car racing towards me. It was the slamming of the brakes that alerted me more than the speed but it didn’t matter either way. I had no time to react, no chance to run. Three men were out of the car in a flash, doors left open, engine still running.

They were on me before I could move. A dark shape came at me hard from the left and I was falling to the pavement. There was a moment of sweet calm, a vague feeling of feet against me then a long nothingness. Sleep came fast.

When I came round I was unable to move or see. Sneaking consciousness without light is a strange experience.

I slowly became aware that my hands and legs were both tied. The little movement that I could make with my fingers confirmed I was lashed to a chair. My head was covered, not just my eyes. A hood, maybe a pillowcase.

I listened.

Nothing. No voices, no breathing, no movement. Then, from further away, maybe through a wall, I heard raised voices but could make nothing out.

Long, long periods of silence broken only by the occasional distant shout of complaint.

I was calm. Cold. Waiting for what had to come.

This wasn’t part of the plan. Far from it. I’d deal with it though. So be it. Bring it on.

I slept on and off.

Much as I fought it, tiredness and even boredom washed over the adrenalin and I slipped away for a while. I woke now and again to hear offstage cries, reality and dreams mashing away time, snoozing through a nightmare that was almost certainly of my own making.

When a door slammed and people walked into the room, snapping me awake, I had no way of knowing how long I had sat tied to that chair but the aches in my bones and the lack of feeling in my fingers and limbs told me that it was long enough. I could see no light through whatever was tied over my head so it could have been night or day.