59 Minutes Read Online Free PDF Page B

was
heaving in air but still kept some pace on. It took me an hour to find my way
back to the main road and another twenty minutes to get a cab.
    My instructions were simple. If we were split up we
were to meet up at Euston Station and if no one was there I was to jump the
first train to Glasgow .
    Euston was quiet. It was over an hour until the first
train was due north and I bided my time by wandering between the toilets and a
side entrance - trying to keep a low profile.
    With five minutes to go there was still no sign of
George and Tony and I boarded the train bathed in sweat.
    I breathed deeply as it pulled out of the station.
    The journey was long and full of questions but no-one
to ask them of. When the train pulled into Glasgow I headed straight for Craig Laidlaw. I took him to
one side and told him what had gone down. I handed him the package and he told
me to ‘fuck off’ for a while.
    Three days later London invaded Glasgow .
    I never saw it but I heard plenty. Some of it is now
legend. Bar fights, street brawls, one on ones and even shooters. The guys from London were good and well used to a fight but this was home turf for Mr Read and
before the day was out the London gang had turned tail and fled.
    I was summoned to a rare meet with the victor. He told
me I had done well. I thought I had turned chicken by running - go figure.
George and Tony were on their way back up - a bit of a mess but they would
live.
    London was
pissed off, Mr Read was basking in it all and I was dying to ask what was in
the package that had kicked all this off - but I didn’t have the nerve to ask.
    As it turned out I didn’t need to. Mr Read reached
into his pocket and took out the small cloth pack that I had carried from London . He
opened it up and the world was full of glinting light.
    Diamonds, dozens and dozens of diamonds lying in the
palm of his hand. I knew nothing of their value but the smile on Mr Read’s face
told a story. He reached into the pile, picked out two and handed them to me.
    ‘Joey will sort you out when you want to trade them
in.’
    He patted me on the head like a kid, wrapped up the
gems and was gone. I was twenty five and I felt like a ten year old. I had just
been handed near on a grand’s worth of diamonds.
    It was time to move on.

Chapter 11
     
    My step into the big time was not an easy one and I
could fill the remaining time we have together with stories of woe and times
that were hard. Of how I had to struggle to rise above the mob and sacrifice my
every want and desire as I strove for a brighter future. I could but I won’t.
I’ll keep to the real juice.
    It was late August and the Scottish summer had been
the usual mix of pish and rotten. I was recovering from a late one at the Griffin - my
new pub of choice and witness to a quiet night out to celebrate a nice haul
from a job in Edinburgh .
    The next morning I was sitting nursing my head
thinking that the share from the London job would put a nice dent in my mortgage when the
doorbell rang. I rose expecting to find the postman trying to force fit an
unwanted catalogue into my letterbox. Instead I found two men, neither of whom
I had laid eyes on before, standing on my doorstep.
    They were polite and well dressed and I guessed them
for Jehovah’s Witnesses. I told them I was Buddhist but they politely smiled
and asked if they could come in. I refused and the smaller of the two reached
into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gun.
    I let them in.
    They asked for a cup of tea and I felt it would be a
wise move to acquiesce and returned ten minutes latter with two brews and a
plate of digestives. They sat and sipped the tea without a word.
    I waited, assuming there was a point to the visit. I
wasn’t unduly worried about the gun. If they had intended to kill me the job
would have been done by now.
    ‘Do you enjoy working for Mr Read?’
    The man with the gun’s accent was laced with a
southern lilt.
    I didn’t answer.
    ‘Smart kid,’ said the