Red Alert (3 page)

Johnny followed Paul into the foyer. There was a steward on the door and Paul nodded amiably to him as he strolled over to the reception, where he had to sign Johnny in. Johnny felt a frisson of excitement as the camera took his picture for future reference and for his card. The security door was buzzed open for them and they strode into the gaming area.

‘Feel free to have a wander round, Johnny. If you want a drink at the bar, just tell them you’re my guest. We’ll have something to eat in the restaurant on the balcony later on.’

Johnny looked round in fascination. On both sides were banks of screens displaying the various games on offer. He was surprised and amused to realise that you could play roulette on a touch screen without ever having to go over to the tables.

He walked over to the cluster of tables where attractive girls in blue dresses controlled the games of roulette and various card games, gamblers carefully studying their cards before moving the chips to complete their bets.

There was an air of suppressed tension and excitement and Johnny wallowed in it.

He slowly walked up the double staircase, drink in hand, to get an overview. He leaned nonchalantly against the banister, the large framed photos of river boats and southern worthies behind him. He stood, arms braced on the rail, surveying the room, drinking in its buzz. He felt important and confident. He continued on to the restaurant area and stared, entranced by the view. Behind the diners was a wall of windows overlooking the river.

It may well have been fairly prosaic in daylight, but it was transformed by the glowing neon lights of the city into a sparkling splash of vibrant colour, reflecting off the smooth waters of the river.

Johnny was to start the next day and Renee gave him money to stock up the fridge and freezer with food from Marks and Spencer’s – nothing but the best. And he was to take a taxi back so that he wouldn’t need to be carrying anything. He went into town early, and on the way he stopped off at Royal Exchange Square in the hope of seeing some of his friends there. Sure enough, at the back of the Gallery of Modern Art and on the flight of stairs between the pillars at the back of Borders bookshop, he found some of his friends. He loafed about with them for a while, draped back on the steps sharing a spliff with them. He longed to talk about his job but managed to contain himself. It was like a dream and it wasn’t the smoke that was causing it. It was real. The glamorous James Bond double, the gorgeous girlfriend. The exciting casino. The beautiful flat. The gun.

He told himself that his friends wouldn’t believe him. That made it easier to keep quiet. For now at least. He doubted he could keep such an exciting adventure to himself for ever. After leaving Royal Exchange Square, he walked up to Sauchiehall Street Marks and Spencer’s and enjoyed filling the wire trolley from a list he’d already made out. His head was buzzing with ideas for all the meals he planned to cook. He blessed all the hours, indeed years, of his mother’s teaching, when he’d been confined to the house. He had never been sure whether she was coaching him to be able to feed himself and look after himself after she was gone, or encourage him to have some sort of talent for a job once he was fit enough to work. Well, it had done that all right. She had probably imagined him eventually baking scones and cakes in some little tearoom, but this, oh, this was so much better than anything he or his mother could ever have imagined. He was getting paid for it as well. Not a big wage, it had to be admitted, but so what! It was still a job in a million, and it suited him perfectly. It didn’t entail any heavy work or a boss standing over him harassing him all the time.

Once back in the flat, he packed the food into the fridge and freezer, only leaving out what he’d need for the first evening meal. He had decided on broccoli soup, followed by smoked salmon and cream cheese en croute with a few buttered potatoes and parsley sauce. For dessert, he’d have rice pudding and stewed apples. Then coffee and mints to finish.

Eventually, the table set and everything cooked and ready, and with time to spare before Paul and Renee arrived, he went into the hall, took the gun from the drawer and held it with both hands, arms stretched out in front of him. He pointed it around rapidly, to each side, then he swung right round and aimed down the opposite end of the hall. With each stance, he admired himself in the hall mirror. He thought he looked the part, really tough, ready for anything. No one would dare to enter that door.

As it was, he got quite a shock when he heard a key in the door and realised it was Paul and Renee. Flustered and embarrassed, he flung the gun back into the drawer, slamming it closed as the door swung open. He struggled to look nonchalant.

‘Hey there, Johnny. Everything OK?’ Paul asked.

‘Yes, everything’s ready. I’ll just go and dish up.’

‘No.’ Renee put up a protesting hand. ‘You don’t need to stay and serve us. I can do that. Just show me what you’ve prepared. We like to relax on our own in the evening. And sometimes you’ll just have to leave everything ready because we’ll be working into the early hours.’

‘I don’t mind waiting.’

‘No, you just go home to bed.’

Reluctantly, he led her into the kitchen and explained about each course.

‘It looks delicious,’ Renee said. ‘Now off you go.’

Paul was still in the hall, but he’d taken off his smart camel coat. He put out a hand and shook Johnny’s.

‘It smells delicious, Johnny.’

He opened the door and ushered Johnny out. Clattering triumphantly down the stairs and out on to the still busy Byres Road, Johnny didn’t hear Paul and Renee laughing.

Later, as they drove to the casino in their BMW Series 3, they could hardly believe their luck. Johnny was what they had been looking for, exactly what they needed for the success of the plan they’d been nursing for some time. The gun had clinched the deal of working at the flat, of course. It made Johnny immediately imagine he was some sort of courageous hero.

They reached the casino and sat for a few minutes savouring how successful their plan was going to be and how it would change their lives. Rain sparkled down the windscreen, jewels of light caught in the neon reflection of the casino.

‘There’s still one thing I can’t help worrying about,’ Renee said eventually. ‘OK, he’s a naive idiot, but will he have enough nerve to go along with the plan? After all, it’s a risky robbery.’

‘What’s risky about it?’

Renee laughed. ‘For God’s sake, Paul. We’re talking a fortune here.’

‘But it’s perfect. We’ve got a copy of the key to the safe. We know the manager looks forward to his night break in the staff dining room and he leaves his office on the dot at the same time every night. We know he sits and reads his book while he eats his two rolls and bacon and drinks two cups of coffee. He’s there for nearly an hour every night, concentrating on his book and chewing at his dentures. He’s been doing it for years. We’ve been watching him for years, haven’t we? He’s never once deviated from his routine.’ Paul grinned. ‘It gives Johnny plenty of time to nip in the side window and empty the safe of all that lovely cash that’s waiting to be put in the bank first thing in the morning.’

‘I know all that. All I’m saying is, will Johnny muster enough nerve to do it?’

‘Well, there’s the motivation first of all. We’ll tell him what a perfect life he could give his mother and sister with his share of the money, and how they’ll be able to start a wonderful new life abroad, and so on.’

‘What if that still doesn’t give him enough nerve?’

‘For God’s sake, you worry too much. We can tell him to take the gun. Not to use it. There’ll be no need for that. Only to make him feel more confident, a big James Bond hero. Just leave Johnny to me, OK?’

They entered the casino and, as they worked at their tables, they kept glancing over to the door of the manager’s office, past the tense faces of the gamblers. Dead on time, the door opened and the manager, in his smart black suit and black bow tie, appeared. As usual, he was clutching his book. He was a thin, lanky guy with a long, pinched nose. The only time he wore spectacles was when he was reading his book. They perched on the end of his nose and any croupiers who saw him said they were surprised his specs didn’t slip off his nose and splash into his coffee.

After three-quarters of an hour, the tall figure appeared again, walked back to the office and shut the door behind him. Johnny would have plenty of time to get in, open the safe and stuff all the money into the bag that Renee had made especially for the purpose. It was to be fastened round his chest, under his coat. Then he would escape back through the window and return to his house in Botanic Crescent. That way, there would be no connection between the robbery and any of the croupiers. Later, when they thought it to be safe, they would collect the money from Johnny. Admittedly, they would have a lot of persuading to do to get Johnny to go along with the plan, but they were becoming more and more certain that they could do it.

They used to call Hamish Ferguson ‘Fatty Ferguson’ when he was at secondary school. They ignored his pimples. That, he supposed, was because quite a few of the other pupils, boys and girls alike, suffered the same disadvantage. Bad skin seemed to be just another problem of being a teenager. However, Hamish was the only overweight pupil in the class at secondary school and he was never allowed to forget it.

At home, his mother was ashamed of him. At least, she never wanted to be seen with him. She was very glamorous for an older woman. She did her best to look younger. She’d had what she called ‘a boob job’. She’d had her long hair dyed blond and it was hooked back and up with a frilly elastic band, and she wore embarrassingly short denim skirts. She certainly could attract men – younger men especially. If she had a boyfriend in the house, Hamish had to hide himself in his room. Or, more often, he had to get out and wander the streets. Or he’d hang around in cafés until the coast was clear. Sometimes he’d go to the pictures. His mother was never mean with money. From when he was quite young, he would sit for ages in McDonald’s or places like that, eating burgers and chips. Lots of ice cream too, of course. Looking back now, he supposed that was why he’d put on so much weight and was nicknamed Fatty.

Thank goodness it was different at the Glasgow School of Art. Nobody called him anything but Hamish there. There were about twenty students in the Life class and all were busy, like him, studying the model and concentrating on trying to transfer a good likeness of him or her on to their canvases.

At break time, they’d all go across the road to the rec. There they could get some fruit and even veggie stuff at lunchtime. Quite often now, he’d try the veggie stuff and already he had lost quite a bit of weight. Even his skin, although far from perfect, had begun to show signs of clearing up.

He tried to hang on to the company of the other art students for as long as possible. Often he went with them to one of the pubs or clubs after the day at the Art School finished. He’d started to put gel on his hair like the other blokes. Unlike some of the others, though, he kept his hair short and so just had small spikes. Some of the others had really showy shapes. He didn’t want too much attention paid to his plump face. Although maybe it would have been better to have high Mohican-style spikes. Maybe that way, more attention would have been drawn to his hair instead of to his face. It was a big problem.

Now his mother had another boyfriend. She said he was special. He was different, and he wanted to move in with her. He was different, all right. Usually her boyfriends were quite a few years younger than her. This one – his name was Damon, of all things – looked not much older than Hamish. In fact, now that he came to think of it, he remembered a Damon in the last year of secondary school when he’d started in his first year. He’d never actually met the guy but he’d heard the name bandied about and made fun of. It could have been the same person. If it was the same Damon, that meant he would only be a few years older than Hamish. He would still be in his twenties. It was ridiculous. Hamish had blurted that out to his mother and she was furious.

‘If you don’t like it, you know what you can do. Get out. I’m sick of you criticising my friends.’

‘I never say a word about your friends,’ Hamish protested.

‘Yes you do. And Damon is more than a friend. He’s moving in and I’m not having you making both our lives miserable. You’ll have to get out. And I mean to digs. Any place except here.’

Hamish was completely flummoxed by this. He’d never been allowed to be seen by her men before, but he’d never dreamt she would go this far. Not his mother. Sometimes, right enough, he wondered if she really was his mother. Maybe he’d been adopted at birth or something. Maybe she’d just been looking after him for somebody else. But, come to think of it, she had never looked after him. He’d lost count of the number of babysitters he’d had when he was young. He’d never known his father, and his mother had kept moving around and changing her job. Hamish’s younger days had been a terrible mix-up of people and places. Some of the babysitters had been the pits. He tried not to remember them. His mother never seemed to care what they were like.

But actually putting him out, abandoning him completely?

‘But … but where will I go?’

‘You heard me – into digs. Lots of students live in digs. Why shouldn’t you?’

‘But I’ve no money.’

‘I’ll pay your digs for the first week. I’m always giving you money as it is. You eat like a bloody horse. It’ll be worth it to get rid of you. I want you out of here tomorrow, whether you’ve found digs or not. Do you hear?’

He felt so shattered, he could have started blubbering right there and then. Only with a supreme effort, and a very deep breath, did he prevent the tears from escaping. He even managed a strong and casual-sounding ‘OK’.

Next day, during the first break, he’d told some of the lads that he was looking for digs. Mike Jones gave him the name of a landlady who might have a room to let. Mike had met someone in the pub who was living there but he was going down south to work and so would be leaving the area.